


Life as a Novel in Progress

by sue_dreams (raegan_1)



Series: Author meets Alien, Writes (More) Porn [1]
Category: Smallville
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampires, Alternate Universe - alien physiology, Lex Luthor/Bruce Wayne (offscreen) - Freeform, Lois Lane/Selena Kyle (brief mention), M/M, Warning: blood-play mention, Xenophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-17
Updated: 2013-11-17
Packaged: 2018-01-01 21:49:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1048961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raegan_1/pseuds/sue_dreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clark needs a place to stay now that he's ready to leave the dorms of Met U. Lois apparently thinks her best friend Lex needs a live-in caretaker. Cohabitation with a stranger is difficult enough when Clark isn't falling in love with him, or at least he thinks that'd be theoretically true. Lex is guarded, his past troubled, and if Clark wants a chance with the enigmatic writer, Clark is going to have to take a chance on him.</p>
<p>They can weather friendship with Lois, the neighbor's surplus of odd-tasting cookies, a potential stalker, and any amount of embarrassment over laundry, but those are all the 'normal' problems, and Clark and Lex are anything but normal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Tallihensia for a most fantastic beta. All mistakes are mine, but she's been a wonderful cheerleader and motivator, and her 11th hour notes and suggestions made this much better than I could have achieved by myself.
> 
> Chapters are all Clark PoV, prologue and interludes are Lex PoV. It should be clear, but if not...
> 
> Warnings: AU. Xenophilia. Mentions and brief interludes of blood play. There's no dub con between the main characters at all, however there is a scene in a book written by one of the characters which is dub con. see the end notes for more details on what the scene is if you want to check before reading.

"I don't need a babysitter," Lex responded tartly.

Lois laughed at him as she flicked her cigarette and knocked ashes into the bushes that lined the bottom of the porch. "He needs a place to stay, you could use a little less seclusion. I'm willing to wager the only people you've spoken to this month are me, the crazy baker lady, and your agent."

"You would be wrong," Lex informed her. He didn't bother to elaborate, which just spoke for how tired and out of practice he was, because withholding information from Lois wouldn't stop her from having an opinion and sharing it with him regardless.

"Your creepy boyfriend doesn't count," she returned. She had him there, but he still had two different food delivery service drivers he had spoken to, so his comment stood. "How goes the writing, by the way? Is the sex still inspiring?"

"We've agreed to never share our sex lives," Lex reminded her. "I still hate Selena Kyle and I will never ask what you get up to with her, and I'd appreciate the same discretion from you."

"Except I'm nosy, your boyfriend is hot enough to land on the society page for blinking pretty, and you telling me about your kinky sexploits does not mean I have to return the favor. In fact, you sharing all the details with me may please me to the point where I am kind enough to share none of my details with you."

"As tempting as it is to have the promise of hearing nothing ever again, no." Lois seemed to have a too-high opinion of Lex's sex life. He had to admit that when he told her his vampire characters were based off him and Bruce, he had set her up to believe that two men with healthy libidos had sex an average of three times a night. Given her own experiences, she should have called him on his bullshit from the get-go.

She huffed at him, but said nothing, which was more worrying than any response she could have spoken. She drew a long inhale from her cigarette and blew it toward the street before going back to her original point. “He cooks. After he interned last year, he’s made my potluck dishes for all work get-togethers.”

“You indentured your intern? Is he’s going to cook for me in trade of rent? Because that doesn’t quite balance.”

“He gets a minimal wage for working evenings and weekends at the Planet, but that’s not going to be enough to live on. Unless he ends up in Suicide Slums. And Lex? He already circled ads for the Slums in the paper. If you don’t let him move in, he’s going to be dead in a month and Chloe will never forgive me.”

The short answer was that it _wasn’t his problem_ , but Lois was asking and that was reason enough to make it his problem. At least she wasn’t asking him to put up bribe money to get Selena out of trouble in Gotham. Again. 

“Between your writing schedule, and his class load and work schedule, you probably won’t see him more than three times a week. Meanwhile, he’ll probably cook like his mother, which means if you let him stay here, you’ll always have food in the kitchen. Your affair with your food delivery man can end.”

Lex considered it, but even if they both knew he was going to give in and agree, he couldn’t go out without a fight. He didn’t need the rent money, he didn’t actually need someone to feed him, but maybe he could get something else out of this. “You’ve been getting interviews with Metropolis’s new hero. Promise me the details that don’t make it into the paper.”

Her expression turned wary. “What makes you think I’ve left anything out?”

“Because he’s rescued you no less than three times and there’s no way you didn’t dig as much as you were able. I also know how to read between your lines. I understand there are things you can’t tell the general public, and there are things you probably wouldn’t share even with people who have a normal respect for privacy. I am neither. ”

“Point. Okay, there’s not a lot, because he’s nearly as good as you are about keeping his cards close to his chest, but I have a couple of ideas to fill in the pieces.”


	2. Chapter One

Clark Kent was born on a distant planet, raised on a farm, and had come under the tutelage of Lois Lane in his senior year of high school, when he finally decided on journalism as his college path. His best friend had introduced him to her reporter-in-training cousin, laughing all the while as if she had known what was in store for him.

He had gotten a lot from the association, good, bad, and worse. This was above and beyond what he had expected. 

"You're a what?" Clark tried to look over the top of the box in his arms, but the other man was leaning into the truck and reaching for another box, giving Clark a view of nothing but his backside. And what a lovely backside. Clark could feel his cheeks heating up as he hurriedly turned his head away. He’d already embarrassed the both of them by repeatedly thanking Lex and shaking his hand in that over-eager way he’d thought movies and television made up.

"A writer," Lex said again, straightening up with the last box marked for the bedroom. "I don't know how heavy your box is, but this isn't light."

"Right." Clark turned and went inside, conversation momentarily derailed as he navigated the stairs. Lex wasn't far behind him, not far at all. Clark jumped forward when he felt the press of a box on his back. He dropped his box on the bare mattress of his room and then he turned, just in time to help Lex set down his box with care. Then they were face-to-face again and Clark was struck once again by the man's face and his intense, stormy gaze.

"An author," Lex clarified, seemingly at random. "Of books. I put words to the page." He tilted his head as if challenging Clark to say something derogatory. Or maybe the look was because Clark was staring. It was hard to look away.

Distracted as he was, Clark almost let the setup go. Then he didn't, because it occurred to him that Lex, like Lois, might be someone who thought teasing was the only way to introduce oneself. This was what happened when you let your friends find your roommates. He widened his eyes and asked with all the earnestness he could muster, "Do you ever run out?"

Lex seemed to get it and grinned, the scar on his upper lip more pronounced when he smirked. "Of which? Words or pages?"

"Oh, I knew this was going to be fun," Lois interrupted before Clark could answer. Both men turned to look at her standing at the top of the stairs. She waved an unlit cigarette at them. "Lex, come make sure your neighbor doesn’t attack me for flicking ashes in her garden. I'm sure Smallville can finish up."

"Trying to get back on Mrs. Q's bad side?" Lex asked. They went down the stairs, leaving Clark alone, devoid of assistance he really didn't need and the attention of a man he’d just met and yet was drawn to with surprising intensity. Lois was going to have a field day with this, and so in turn would Chloe. Clark wasn't sure what would happen when Lex discovered Clark's penchant for crushing on the wrong people, but he hoped it would be nicer than Lois's reaction to his previous unrequited crush on her.

The possibility that any crush (especially this one) might be requited was shoved far, far down. Being “not from around here” was the start of his problems, but not the least of them.

“Let’s go,” Lex said, storming up from the basement and interrupting Clark’s dinner planning.

Lois had warned Clark not to expect to see Lex very much, so after they’d brought in all the boxes and Lois had departed, Clark had figured it was time for him to settle in alone. For Lex to be out of his basement suite and wanting to pull Clark along in his wake was unexpected.

It turned out that the neighbor to their north along the street, Constance Quartermain, didn't so much have a 'bad side' as no good side to speak of, a pair of binoculars, and a long list of complaints against everyone on the street. Almost everyone, that was -- her only apparent issue with Lex was his continued association with Lois.

"You look lovely today," Lex said, bending over Mrs. Quartermain's wrinkled hand. "How are Begonia and Petunia this morning?"

"Oh, the girls are fine," she twittered, reaching up to pat her blue -- and Clark had thought that to be only an expression -- hair. "Who’s your young friend?"

Lex turned to include Clark in his smile. "My new roommate. Please don't judge him by his association with Lois. He's got country manners."

Clark smiled at her and tipped an imaginary hat, as Lex had instructed on the walk from their porch to hers. "Ma'am."

She smiled at him and then at Lex once more. "Lovely, lovely. You boys wait here. I have some cookies. Fresh baked this morning. You knew that, of course. Lex shows up like clockwork whenever I bake," she told Clark, before ambling back inside and leaving Clark and Lex on the porch.

"Cookies?"

"Bite, chew, swallow, smile. Make appreciative noises. If you can manage it, finish the cookie and you'll never have to worry about what she's telling the other neighbors behind your back." Lex's quick instructions cut off as Mrs. Quartermain came back into view. Clark reached to open the door and earned himself an approving nod from Lex.

"Here, now. Chocolate chip. These are Lex's favorites, you know." She extended a plate of cookies first to Clark, then Lex. Then she stared at Clark with anticipation, reminding him a bit too much of one of the old farm wives from Smallville that time he’d been one of the judges at the Harvest bake-off.

His stomach already churning, though the cookie smelled like it ought, he took a bite. He chewed. Smiled and mmmed and chewed and chewed and swallowed. And because his stomach was the alien equivalent of cast iron, he took another cookie, much to Mrs. Quartermain's delight and Lex's quickly stifled surprise. Then, because he could follow directions and he'd learned quite a bit from the old farm wives from Smallville, he exclaimed it delicious around the bite in his mouth.

They were invited in and Lex accepted the invitation gracefully for both of them, following after their hostess while Clark grimaced and quickly chewed and swallowed the rest of his second cookie. It wasn't nearly as bad as he remembered mud pies and stone soup to be, but there were definitely important ingredients left out, like an appropriate amount of sugar. The aftertaste was almost garlicky.

"I'll make tea," she said, leaving them in a sitting room. Lex flowed easily into a floral-patterned armchair and stared up at Clark.

"What?" Clark asked. Lex just smirked, his default facial expression in the short time Clark had known him, and said nothing. Clark took up roost on the couch cushion nearest Lex, which left two thirds of a sofa and another armchair for their hostess. "Do you make a habit of wooing all your neighbors? Elderly, female, or otherwise?"

"She's a fan," Lex finally admitted. "Not of the vampire series, but the one before it. Typical male-female romance novel. She thought I had a wife because of the library -- have you seen the library? -- But when I told her I'd written them, she started quizzing me. Let me tell you, fans can be scary. Fans who talk to all the other neighbors?" He shuddered, continuing. "Thankfully, I managed to work a deal with her. I'm still writing in that same series and I let her choose certain details. A character name in one book, a car model in another. The last four novels have bits and pieces of her history and the dedications in each are to her four sons."

"That's kind of sweet." Clark tried to decide if this was evidence against any of the things Lois had told him about Lex, or if it disagreed with anything else he'd learned in the three hours they'd been living together, but it mostly just filled out the puzzle of Lex Luthor, author, a little more; an odd colored piece in an already chaotic picture.

Lex rolled his eyes and settled back, a sexy half-sprawl on what was probably a pretty comfortable chair, if the sofa were any indication. "It's a good deal. When the first series was optioned for a movie trilogy, there were a lot of nosy people lurking about, but the only things that made it to the media were the things Mrs. Quartermain and I agreed on."

"Lex is a fair negotiator," the woman herself said, coming in with a tea service. Clark hadn't heard her coming, but he was on his feet instantly and moving just under speed to take the tray from her. "Thank you. As I was saying, Lex is shrewd and he knows his business, but what he's not telling you is that half of his profits go into trust funds for my thirteen grandchildren and fifteen great grandchildren."

Mrs. Quartermain and Lex were staring at each other, something Clark only realized when he'd settled the tray and followed her gaze back to Lex. There was a tension in the air, some challenge mixed into the silent communication. It was a little like the atmosphere between Lex and Lois, whose relationship and history was long and full of stories neither one would ever share.

Clark cleared his throat to remind them both that he was there. Mrs. Quartermain shook her head and put her smile back on. "Sit, sit, I'll serve," she told them.

Lex continued to look at her consideringly for a moment, then his gaze came up and caught Clark's. "So someone else gets to use the money I'll never spend and not a single reporter got to hear the story of me breaking into my own house buck naked."

Ceramic clinked against ceramic as Mrs. Quartermain poured the tea, but her titter was clearly audible. "Buck naked except for the cape. I said sit, Clark." Clark sat and listened attentively as she launched into the tale of her first meeting with Lex as Lex sat in silence that served as permission.

Clark took classes during the day and interned at the Daily Planet in the evenings and certain afternoons. He knew Lex's schedule was flexible, but he was surprised the first time he came home at midnight to find the lights on and Lex chain-smoking on the front porch. Clark turned off the car engine after parking by the curb and got out slowly, not certain what kind of situation he was walking into. After moving in and the introduction to the neighbors, Lex had withdrawn for three days into his basement suite.

"Hi," Clark said tentatively, coming up the walk.

Lex dragged heavily on the cigarette, then dropped it on the cement that stopped at the porch steps. He stood up and rubbed it out with the toe of his shoe. "Ground rules. My scotch? It stays in that cupboard. Rearrange the rest of the kitchen, but it doesn't move."

His hard tone was enough to make Clark pause an arm's length from Lex, who seemed disinclined to move and finish this conversation inside. "Okay."

"Okay," Lex repeated. He smiled suddenly. "Okay. Second, did you do my laundry?"

In spite of the smile and the initial point of the scotch, Clark had a feeling that this was more important. He tried to find an answer or explanation that would suffice, but managed only a slow, "Yeah?" as he tried to figure out how badly he'd miss-stepped. Lex's clothes had been in his laundry basket, he'd sorted them so there were no suddenly pink underwear or socks.

The smile was more of a smirk. "You handled my underwear." 

And been taken aback by the Warrior Angel boxers. Clark turned red, but said nothing; there was no point denying the truth. "Is that a problem?" Clark asked instead, because he got that there was something beneath the surface of Lex's amusement, something just a bit off, crooked and insincere, with that smile.

Lex tipped his head to the side. "Probably not. Despite the fact that you are a close approximation of the media, I don't think you'd go around discussing my underwear with your erstwhile cohorts."

"But?" Clark pressed, sensing that there was another point to be made.

"But do us both a favor and don't discuss any part of my personal life with anyone."

"I haven't," Clark said. Not even Lois, who had teased him every day. In truth, she hadn't pushed him for anything important, beyond how often Clark had seen Lex. "I wouldn't. I wouldn't be here if there was a chance of that. Lois wouldn't have helped arrange this."

There was a lightening of Lex's expression at the reminder. "I appreciate that you think Lois's judgment of people to be so spot on. I typically agree with you. But anyone can be fooled, Clark."

"If you're that suspicious, why didn't you meet me yourself before I moved in?"

"I did." Lex smiled, quick and sly. He finally turned and went up the porch steps, leaving the path clear for Clark to follow. "I'm not surprised you don't remember."

Clark stared at his back, mind racing. When Lex opened the door into the house, Clark shook his head and jogged up the steps. "When was this?" Despite his curiosity to hear the answer to his question, Clark hesitated before stepping into the house. There was a sense, a rising of the hair at the nape of his neck. He scanned the street but heard nothing. Stretching out his hearing confirmed that most of the neighborhood had settled for the night, with a few late-nighters watching television or clicking around on the internet. Nothing moved on the street, no hearts beat out a tattoo in the night, aside from what was either a cat or a raccoon half a block away. He squashed his uneasiness and followed Lex inside.

They moved through the house, the shadowed interior very dim after the brightness of the streetlights. Clark could see pretty well in the dark and Lex seemed familiar with the way to the kitchen. "Did we actually meet?" Clark pushed, back on topic and curious and guessing by Lex's smug expression that he was willing to be prodded into answering. "Were there introductions and handshakes?"

Lex shook his head as he went directly to the cupboard with the scotch. The tumblers were on the same shelf, and he pulled down a glass, but not the liquor. "Not quite. When the plant was shut down for unsafe practices, Lois pointed you out." Clark couldn't see Lex's face, but his tone was even, almost carefully flat.

"You were there?" Clark asked, though obviously, Lex's recollection said he had been. Clark remembered that day pretty well, but it had been chaotic. The town had crawled with reporters and officials. Lionel Luthor had shown up long enough to be told there would be no stay of the motion. For the town, it had been a combination of good and bad. "That's probably a dumb question."

Lex turned enough to give Clark a glimpse of his hardened expression. "My father and I tend to orbit each other in our worst moments."

Oh, right. Clark had almost forgotten the relationship between Lex and Lionel Luthor. Despite sharing the same last name and many genes, Clark didn’t think of Lex as anything other than _Lex_ , an entity whole unto himself and unique unto the world. Which was foolish of Clark, because Lois had _warned_ him away from talking about Lionel Luthor if he could help it. "It was good that Cadmus Labs took an interest in the meteorites," Clark said, trying to change the subject. The company had cleaned up the rocks around Smallville, making it safer for all the citizens, but especially innocents like Lana, who always seemed to be the target of the meteor-affected.

"Good." That was very definitely satisfaction, though Clark wasn't sure at what. Perhaps that Clark hadn't pushed? Conversations with Lex were like walking in a minefield where someone kept moving the mines each time Clark lifted his foot. "Though it was a hard hit for the town, losing so many jobs." 

"Right," Clark agreed. For someone who hadn't lived in Smallville, it was hard to explain all the ways that the rocks had made life difficult and how their removal had signaled many positive changes Clark couldn't have imagined for the town. Changes no one had been able to envision. The transformation and growth afterward had seemed to catch them all by surprise, after a frightening and uncertain lull. "They recovered. There are new businesses and the factory reopened. Gabe Sullivan got the workers to pull together and they own it now."

"It was a crazy idea they managed to pull off. Good for them." There was an odd quality to his voice that spoke to Clark of a level of investment that a stranger to the town wouldn't have. Lex was there when they closed the factory down, he knew it was open again, and he seemed to be trying hard to hide what that meant to him. Clark had the sudden thought that if he dug into the deal Gabe Sullivan had pulled, he’d find the name Lex Luthor buried far down the paper trail.

If that was the case, it would be one hell of a scoop, the disinherited Luthor heir managing to make a success of Lionel Luthor’s more recent and public failures. It was the type of story that Lois would sink her teeth into, given half the chance and no ties to Lex. Clark wouldn’t dig enough to prove it, but it was the type of story that Clark could see Lois helping to bury because of Lex’s involvement.

Lex filled his tumbler from the water pitcher in the fridge, then hesitated. “Thirsty?”

“No, thank you,” Clark answered instinctively. He realized immediately afterward that he actually was, but it wasn’t water he wanted. “Not for water. I’m going to put on a pot for tea, though.” He had to revise the next chapter of his Master’s thesis and revise the piece he planned to submit to the Planet about the standardized testing in Metropolis’s elementary schools. He’d meant to get it finished before he left the Planet, but he’d had to take an unexpected, hour-long break at ten o’clock to put on his uniform and deal with a warehouse fire that threatened to spread to the Suicide Slums.

“Enjoy that. I need to sleep before I deal with tomorrow’s edits.” Lex sipped his water as if in demonstration.

“What are you working on right now?” Clark asked. He had finally found what Lex referred to as the ‘library.’ He hadn’t realized how prolific Lex’s writing was, but there’d been two full shelves of books with matching covers that featured soft colors. A third shelf had held the first three books of the vampire series. Clark hadn’t realized until he’d started reading the first chapter of _Bite_ that he had already read it before. There were few enough mainstream novels featuring a gay lead, but Lex’s had hit the shelves at the peak of vampire story popularity. Clark had enjoyed the first two books, but had been busy at college for the third. There was a release date for the fourth book, but it wasn’t out yet.

Despite the innocence of the question, Lex regarded Clark with what could only be suspicion for a moment. He took another drink of water, then put the tumbler down on the kitchen table. “You should probably start the water on the stove, if you want to drink it before dawn.”

“Right,” Clark said. He went through the motions of finding the kettle and filling it enough for two cups of tea. Once the stove was set to heat the water, Clark kept himself busy getting down a teacup and deciding what kind of tea he wanted of the half dozen options in the cupboard. He was very aware of Lex standing quietly in the corner of the kitchen by the basement. 

Despite as highly attuned to Lex as he was, he almost missed when Lex spoke, and he did miss what was said.

“What?” he asked, turning from his preparations.

“Vampires,” Lex said again. “I’m doing edits on the last half of the fourth book in the series.”

“Oh,” Clark responded. “ _Caught in the Sun_?” Lex looked surprised and Clark felt suddenly sheepish. “I’m a bit of a fan? I didn’t realize I’d read them until I was looking at your collection. I haven’t read _Taste of Blood_ , because it came out when I was first figuring out what I wanted to do for my Master’s, but I liked the first two.”

“The fourth book is complete enough, but there are a few things that came up when I started the fifth book, so my editor is giving me another chance to tweak things to set up the resolution.” It was the most Lex had shared about his writing himself. Clark had learned quite a bit about the traditional romance series from Mrs. Quartermain, especially the ones influenced by her, like _The Fire Captain’s Daughter_.

If Lex was willing to engage, Clark had a lot of questions that were hopefully non-invasive. “It’s been a while since the third book came out. Were you waiting purposely to start the fifth book before the fourth was submitted, or did it just work out that way?” 

Lex never came to sit down at the table, even after Clark had his tea and was sipping at it carefully. However, Lex did stay in the kitchen for nearly forty minutes before the grandfather clock in the hallway chimed one o’clock in the morning, effectively reminding the author that he had plans for the next day.

Clark looked at the ringing phone, uncertain if he should answer. It was the first time he'd heard the landline. He hadn't actually known there was a landline, as both he and Lex carried cell phones. There was no caller id box near the phone. Lex was downstairs, but if there was a connection there, Lex wasn't picking up the phone.

As private as Lex was, did he want Clark answering the phone at all? Should Clark identify the residence as Lex's, or his own, or as theirs?

On the sixth ring, he finally gave up and answered, unable to ignore whoever was on the other end of the line. It just seemed rude. "Hello. This is Clark," he finally settled on. It came out uncertain and he made a face at the base.

Familiar laughter rolled from the other end of the line. "Really, Smallville. That's how you answer the phone?" Lois asked.

"I could have ignored it completely," Clark said petulantly.

"Consider that next time. Go fetch Lex for me, will you? He's not answering his cellphone, but it's not going to voicemail."

Clark glanced uncertainly at the door to the basement. "Is that a bad sign?"

"Not really. It just means he's blocking calls, so he's hopefully on a roll with his story. Now be a good farm boy and go get him for me,” Lois ordered more firmly.

"Yes, Ma'am," he said sarcastically, setting the phone down. He narrowed his eyes at the floor and confirmed Lois’s theory; Lex was at his computer and typing quickly. Clark jogged down the steps and knocked on Lex's door. There wasn't an answer immediately. He thought about walking away and telling Lois that Lex wasn't answering, but if she was calling Clark to fetch Lex, she probably expected Lex not to answer (Clark had expected nothing else), and giving up too early would make her hound Clark all the harder. There wasn't much 'picking battles' with Lois as much as knowing when to give up.

Clark knocked again, surprised when the door came open under his third rap. Lex's eyes were red-rimmed and shadowed. He looked at Clark blankly for a moment before slamming the door shut. It opened a moment later, during which Clark didn't hear any discernible motion. Lex looked the same except for the sharpness of his gaze. "What?"

Discretion and valor being as they were, Clark pointed over his shoulder at the stairs. "Lois is calling on the landline."

"Should have gone with the red phone," Lex murmured nonsensically. He turned back into the room, leaving the door open behind him. "Don't come in."

Given his own secrets, Clark was good with boundaries and he stayed in the small hallway outside Lex's door. He even refrained from taking too much of a look around the room, keeping his gaze focused on Lex's back as the other man moved to a laptop, typed in a command that made the screen go dark, and then returned. 

Clark led the way upstairs and then made himself leave the kitchen when Lex picked up the receiver. He occupied himself in the library, which was becoming his favorite place to work from home. He liked the kitchen space, but its proximity to Lex always distracted him with the idea of Lex coming up the stairs. Before the phone call, Clark had had a few fantasies about going down to the basement and knocking on Lex’s door. In his mind, his welcome had been much warmer. 

Clark had barely entertained that scenario for a minute or three when Lex appeared in the door of the library. Clark hadn’t actually picked up anything to work on or read, and he blinked rapidly as he came out of headspace.

Even though he had Lois to blame for sending him to interrupt Lex’s work, Clark also had his friend to credit for warning him about Lex’s mood swings. 

The other man leaned against the threshold and glared at Clark. “You need to not talk. Don’t knock on my door, don’t interrupt me. Pretend you’re a child, and be seen and not heard. As a journalist, you should appreciate the old adage about the ratio of ears to mouth and the resulting expectation of hearing and being heard.”

Part of Clark wanted him to agree to anything, because house-hunting was hell and living with Lex... not hell. But Clark had come a long way from the days he'd let someone push him around in order to keep from making waves. "I either live here, or I don't. I won't be a silent automaton to be quiet or conversational depending on your whims. I can be quieter, and I will try to be when you're working, but in my experience, living with someone means having to acknowledge they exist and they make noise and messes."

He waited for Lex's reaction to that and did his best to keep his expression resolute while Lex regarded him silently. The response was quiet. "That's not been my experience, but it sounds reasonable. Are you sure you won't take a vow of silence? Quiet meditation can only be good for your articles."

Clark sighed. “I know you’re doing me a favor by letting me stay here. No amount of bullshit from Lois can hide the fact that you don’t need me here. I appreciate it. And I will try to be quiet. I didn’t mean to be disrespectful. I just couldn’t ignore the phone and then… I couldn’t ignore Lois.”

“She is hard to ignore,” Lex said. It sounded like agreement. He pushed away from the doorjamb. “I’m heading back down. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I came on so strong. It’s not terrible having you here.” He started to turn away, but then paused and turned back to give Clark a small smile. “If nothing else, Lois was right about your ability to cook, and that alone would be worth letting you hang around and give me rent money I don’t need.”

"You're gay, right?"

Clark hit his head on the edge of the cupboard and winced. A quick check of the wood showed he hadn't damaged it, which left him free to look at Lex blankly. "What?"

Lex frowned, fair brows scrunching together as he regarded Clark. "This isn't the original question, but are you hard of hearing? I don't think I've ever had to repeat myself as often as I do with you."

There was no way to stop the flush of embarrassment. "I. No. I heard you. Hear you. Fine. Gay, yes. Why?" Oh, he was an idiot. A tongue-tied fool for blue eyes and a smile that seemed to mock him most of the time.

"I’m working on the vampires still, now the fifth book since the edits on the fourth were accepted. What I need to know, from the point of view of the normal, relatively kinkless gay man, is how kinky is blood play when we're talking about Dracula?"

"I have kinks." Lex merely raised an eyebrow, but Clark knew better than to try to insist further. It wasn't the point, and he really didn't want to get into a discussion on what his kinks were. He'd made that mistake with Lois once, and it hadn't worked out in his favor. "What kind of blood play?"

Lex sighed and pulled out a chair at the table. "That's the problem, really. My editor says blood. 'It's Dracula! He's a vampire!' But it's not my kink. Kind of an anti-kink, really. And book two already covered the connection between sucking blood and sucking cock, so it's not like there's new ground for me to cover in that direction. What?"

Clark continued to stare at him for a moment, then shook his head. Blood wasn't his kink, either, but his brain had already drawn up inappropriate images of Lex. "Um. Blood is visual. Red. You've probably, uh, done taste, right? So that leaves the aesthetic or the connection to life."

"Not entirely helpful, but I appreciate the attempt," Lex said. He put his elbow on the table and rested his head on his hand, gaze toward the window. "Blood and vampires is just done. To death, ha ha. I should have just stood my ground on the trilogy. But they insisted that not all good things have to come in threes."

He looked very dejected, sitting there. Clark looked helplessly around the kitchen for a moment before returning to the open cupboard door. "Are you hungry?" He was channeling his mother, but at least Martha Kent knew what to do with a man in her kitchen. Besides jump him, that was. Lex had admitted to liking his cooking, though not to liking Clark (in any capacity, unfortunately).

A sigh answered him. "Not really. I don't have much of an appetite. All the thinking about blood makes me want to scrub my brain."

Clark smiled slightly. "There's a thought. Washing away the blood. Symbolic and it can lead to, um, mutual washing as needed, but-"

"But it's a way to throw blood into sex without making it the focus." Lex was focused on Clark again, blue eyes sharp. "Cooking and washing. You've spent your life aspiring to be a good house-husband, haven't you?"

"Only when I didn't want to be a rock star," Clark tossed back, the words seeming to take Lex as much by surprise as Lex’s answering laughter surprised Clark.

"Oh, you are something else, Mr. Kent." Lex stood and circled the table, invading Clark's space for a mere endless second before heading past him for the refrigerator. "I probably won't be hungry when you're done making whatever you're making, but if you're willing to leave the leftovers on a plate in the fridge, I'd appreciate it."

It was a struggle to remember how to breathe. "I can bring it down to you."

Lex shook his head as he twisted the top off a bottle of water. "I don't like others invading my sanctuary." And didn’t Clark know the truth of that.

"Your Fortress of Solitude." The words brought to mind the old barn loft, destroyed in a tornado years ago. The memory passed quickly, chased from his mind by the unrelenting intensity of Lex's gaze.

"You have a story, Mr. Kent. Sometimes I think it might be a simple parable, young boy brought up right on the farm. But sometimes you look like an epic in progress, a grand destiny stretching before and behind you."

His scrutiny was too reminiscent of Chloe in years past, or Lois more recently, when she forgot how naive she thought him to be. Clark shook his head, denial scratching at him from the inside, though he did his best to appear something other than unnerved. "I think of people more in terms of newspaper sections. And I'm not front page or society or sports. Maybe the classifieds, way at the back."

Another smile flashed across Lex's smile. "Journalists. No depth or feeling to you, just the objective truth. Black and white, and a dearth of gray." He shook his head. "I need to go write bath sex now that you've turned me onto it."

Despite his words, he didn’t disappear immediately. Clark waited a moment, but couldn't hold out long under Lex's scrutiny. "What?"

"Just trying to figure out what kind of ad you would run in the classifieds. Not the 'apartment wanted' section. You don't seem to have many things or need for things, so not the sale section. A singles ad? Single farm-bred male seeks... what are you seeking, Clark?"

It seemed like a simple question, but every answer that came to mind was heavy with a kind of truth Clark wasn’t comfortable with. “I could always use someone who appreciates that being raised on a farm doesn’t make me stupid, boring, or kinkless.”


	3. Interlude One

_The smell of blood was overwhelming, stirring in him a hunger and excitement dulled only by the fear that overlay it._

Lex stared at the screen in dismay, back-spaced a few dozen times, and then started again.

_The smell of blood was strong, but the overpowering scent in the room was fear and it overwhelmed the excitement and thirst the blood stirred in him. Max stood against the far wall, awash in blood, pupils dilated and the blue of his irises obliterated._

_Bruce crossed to him slowly, not a hunter approaching his quarry, but the gods help him, a lover worried._

"Okay, no." Lex selected the last paragraph, hit delete, and got up. He opened the door that lead upstairs to the kitchen and the sound of off-key singing grew louder. Cursing under his breath, he stormed up the steps. He paused at the top of the stairs, arrested by the sight of Clark's swiveling hips, though the pleasant sight was overridden -- he'd have to remember that word -- by the horrible sounds emanating from the man's mouth. "Seriously, Kent. I thought the rock star comment was just a joke."

Clark froze, head swinging toward Lex fast enough that Lex felt the whiplash. "Um."

"Yes, right. Not sure you heard or not, but I'm writing. And you are not as quiet as a church mouse, as promised."

"I never promised that," Clark said slowly, as if he wasn't quite certain he hadn't.

Lex felt the smile coming on and was hard-pressed to stop it. Who knew farm boys could be so damnably cute? "No, but it is a workday for me, if not you, and it was agreed."

"Right," Clark said quickly. "I'll be quiet. Er. Quieter. Because we also agreed-"

"Yes, yes, fine," Lex waved away the rest of the sentence. "Thank Lois for siding with you about not taking a vow of silence to live here."

Clark's smile was sunny. "Lois only put a stop to that because she's hoping I'll drive you crazy."

Lex raised an eyebrow in return and crossed his arms, refusing to have his righteous irritation soothed by his housemate’s charmingly crooked teeth and unfathomably green eyes. "And you're doing a remarkable job of it."

There was a pause as Clark obviously tried to decide if that was another joke or if Lex had just gotten serious. The man was slow sometimes, and quick as lightning at others. Lex’s frequent flirting and then stumbling back-stepping probably didn’t help with that. Part of him wanted to flirt with Clark, just to see where it might go. The rest of him was committed to seeing how his relationship with Bruce would end if Lex didn’t sabotage himself.

Overridden, Lex reminded himself. "You make food. Quieterly. Quietlier. There should be an adverb, but you know what I mean. I am going back downstairs."

Clark's, "Good luck," followed him down the stairs.

Seated once more at his desk, he replaced 'overwhelm' with 'overridden', switched it back, switched it once more, and then left the change in annoyance.

_"Come with me, Max," he commanded, putting the power of their bond behind the words._

_Slowly, Max unfurled from his huddle and accepted the hand Bruce offered. He came into Bruce's embrace willingly_

Lex resisted the urge to brain himself against the desk and got up to answer the timid knocking at his door. Clark stood on the other side of the door, looking surprisingly meek for a man who filled the doorway. "I know you said to just leave it, but it's really better when it's hot," Clark said, holding out a plate.

He stared at the offering for a moment, then up into Clark's hopeful gaze. "But house-husband, you forgot to bring a drink."

Clark rolled his eyes and pushed the plate against Lex's chest. "Would you like some cheese to go with your wine, dear?"

Lex took the plate and put on his serious face. "Your attention span seems to be short, so let me try to recap this for you again. I'm writing. Bath porn, because you suggested it. But my characters are nowhere near water at the moment and they're not going to get near the fucking until then, which means you're ruining my inspiration, Kent."

His green eyes wide, Clark took a step back. "So, no wine then?" He smiled when Lex sighed dramatically. "I'll leave you to it, promise. But you should eat. Because I made it and it's good, and my mother doesn't know you, but even she thinks you're too skinny."

In answer, Lex shut the door, then locked it noisily, though the wood was so flimsy, a twelve year old could kick it in. He put the plate on the side table near his arm chair then seated himself back at the desk. Despite the show of it, however, his irritation was truly gone and he couldn’t recapture it.

_Max accepted Bruce's embrace. This close, the stink of fear was obviously Max's, though given how he'd torn through the room's other occupants, it hadn't been fear for his safety, but of his new nature._

The smell of spaghetti sauce and parmesan was overwhelming. Lex's stomach gurgled again and he glared impatiently at the plate he'd purposely placed away from his desk. This story was never going to get written, at this rate. He slid his chair back so he could put his feet up on the desk, then used his lap as a table as he dug into the food. Lex didn't know Clark's mother and he wasn't too skinny, but at least Clark had been right. It was very good and probably would have lost something if not eaten fresh. 

It was when the plate was half-empty that Lex realized why the writing had been so hard. Or rather, he was suddenly inspired to make the writing potentially easier. He’d been struggling with the idea of his older vampire taking on a new protégé, leaving the Lex-based Joseph alone and lonely, until the plot forced them back together and Joseph realized he couldn’t be replaced so easily.

But that wasn’t quite true to life, and Lex did have a bad tendency of basing his characters and plot on facets of reality. And in the reality of his relationship with Bruce, it wasn’t a new lover filling Bruce’s time and taking him away from Lex, but an old ideal and duty. It was Lex, reality’s Joseph, whose attention was wandering, looking to fill in all the holes Bruce’s absences were leaving.

And with a simple change of the names in the scene, it was easy enough to re-envision the scene and make it work. Joseph would approach as a lover, with the heart and warmth of someone who has still only lived one lifetime and has lost less. And it was Joseph who would make the mistake of turning someone while on the rebound from his previous lover. 

It was Lex who was foolish enough to be looking for his next inspiration before his old was fully done with him. And if reality followed fiction, Bruce wasn’t going to leave him completely. Events would remind them both of their importance to each other. 

The question would be whether Joseph’s feelings had ever been more than lust and friendship.


	4. Chapter Two

Almost before Clark even knew there was a lover in the picture, he was out of it again. This he found out after the fact from Lois. Until then, he'd been confused and sore of heart and pride by the tongue lashing each encounter with Lex had brought. He still didn’t understand how he had never heard of Bruce until then, when he’d been living with Lex for nearly two months. Up until B-day (Breakup Day) they shared meals and conversation at least once a day four or more days out of the week. 

Lex's attitude hadn’t improved at all with Clark's knowledge. "You're looming again, Kent. Sit yourself down or remove yourself," Lex demanded. 

Clark backed up quickly, giving Lex space to enter the kitchen properly. They theoretically shared the common areas of kitchen, dining room, living room, and front and back porches, but Lex only ever seemed to leave his rooms to eat and talk to Clark. It had been amazing at first, but lately Clark had tried to time his own meals to miss the other man, given that most of their interactions, like now, were less than pleasant.

He'd tried to be patient and understanding. He knew what breakups were like. But now it looked like Lex was working against him, purposely trying to create a confrontation Clark couldn't avoid.

Since every word he said was then used against him, Clark decided to try the route of silence. It probably wouldn't work either, as Lex could tear him apart for breathing too heavily or too softly, but it was worth the attempt. Maybe it would spark another round of jokes about vows of silence and why dormice were supposed to be so quiet.

"Pretty, simple farm boy with the simple life. Come on, Clark, you fought back against my original expectation that you would be quiet. You’re loud and obnoxious and unavoidable most of the time, so why are you working so hard now to change that?”

That was enough, days and weeks of this had been too much. "I understand that you're angry and you've a right to be, but I have the right not to take it," Clark said softly.

Lex stilled, face devoid of the earlier anger. "Do you know, that's pretty much what I wanted to say to him? With a few more syllables and a great deal more condescension, but that was the gist."

Clark stared at him a moment, not certain if this was an opening for true dialogue or if Lex was setting him up for another whipping. He decided to forge ahead; his metaphorical skin might not be as thick as the real, but it could handle Lex's barbed tongue. "What did you actually say?"

"Mostly, I think I whined about the unfairness. I may have possibly begged for him not to dump me for a bitch who won't ever appreciate him as well as I do." Lex's shoulders dropped, his spine curving as the rigidity left it. "Not a woman, mind, but... a duty."

Clark knew a thing or three about duty, and he answered unthinkingly, "Duty is a hard thing to escape. Expectation."

Lex looked at him, eyes narrowed consideringly. "What if the only expectation is your own? How strong is your duty then?"

"Um." There was no quick answer to that. Clark had been raised with his parents’ expectations, had stumbled upon his birth father's plans by accident. Ruling the world was a far step away from becoming a doctor or taking over the farm eventually, but the weight of it had still settled on his shoulders for over a year. "I think it depends. On how realistic the expectation is. And that's not something any of us can judge when we're trying to live up to it."

"Interesting. So what, do you run your expectations through a third party?" It was almost sarcastic, but there was an edge of interest in Lex’s gaze, something that said he was less interested in venting by tearing Clark apart and more willing to _hear_ him, as he hadn’t been.

"Maybe, I guess? I think everyone needs a balance, a friend. Someone to say, 'Hey, I get what you want here, but you're being unreasonable.'" That was Chloe to him, and it had been since he and Pete had told her Clark’s secrets. Pete alone hadn’t been quite so reasonable; they’d needed someone with more common sense and ability to think strategically than the both of them together.

"Something like that would have to come from a place that wasn't jealousy and hurt, I bet." Lex slumped a bit, just a minor loosening of all his muscles. "And probably shouldn't be thrown along with priceless vases and a statue that could be sold to buy a fleet of Porsches."

"No. If you're trying to save someone from themselves, I think..." Acting like a jealous lover wouldn’t go over well. Clark cleared his throat, knowing the words were written clearly on his face despite biting his tongue.

Lex nodded. "Right. And maybe eventually I'll get to the point where I can remove myself the necessary distance, but right now I'm mad enough to let him run himself down. He might be easier to pin down and shake sense into if he's exhausted. What?"

Clark snapped his mouth closed, then opened it again. "Just be careful. Cornered animals being dangerous, and all."

"Advice on wild animals from the man who was raised milking cows?"

"Not all the animals in Smallville are domesticated and complacent." His high school years weren't a part of his life he really wanted to discuss, given the questions it invariably raised. 

The words were still there, and with the way Lex was looking at him, he wondered if some of them weren't on his face. Lex only said, "A grand saga, with pages and pages of subtext."

"It's not subtext if it's in the text," Clark said, not pretending to have missed the words and willing to distract Lex with a few of his own. "And trust me, should they ever put my life up on the screen, it will play out more like the gay version of _The Buttercream Gang_ instead of _Lord of the Rings_."

"Better than _Animal House_ ," Lex tossed back, as quick as usual, though his eyes stayed focused on Clark in a way that said he wasn't truly derailed. "Full circle, we're back to animals." There was a pause before his next words came out, more seriously in tone. "Thank you, Clark."

Lex was easier at gratitude than apologies, but Clark couldn't imagine him allowing many people to do something for him that would earn it. Certainly not Clark, who hadn't managed to feed him or offer decent advice. "For what?"

Lex's tongue flicked out over his lips. "For listening."

"It's what friends do."

"I'm sure. I just haven't had enough to form a complete picture. More research is required for that, too." He smirked as if to deny the harsh truth of the words. "Lois doesn't count."

Feeling more dutiful than amused, Clark smiled back. "Sure she does. Lois's friendship is impossible to deny. Or avoid, once she's decided on it."

That earned him a real smile that actually lingered for more than a few seconds. "I wonder if you were broken in before you'd realized it. Trained by Lois's cousin not to know better."

"Chloe and Lois are frighteningly alike," Clark admitted. "But they're different, too. Have you met Chloe?"

"Twice, but we haven't had much to do with each other. Her father worked for mine and it's always been wise to keep a distance."

A question was on the tip of Clark's tongue, but he swallowed it back. Bringing Lex's father into the conversation would probably drain all amusement from it, as would any talk about Clark’s theories regarding Gabe Sullivan, Cadmus Labs, and Lex Luthor’s involvement in Smallville. Clark liked the half-smile on Lex's face as he joked with Clark. 

"I always wanted my own memoirs to read like a romance novel."

Clark stared at him. "No, you didn't." 

"I did. Then I realized that they ended on the high point for a couple who barely managed to get it together in the first place. Entirely unrealistic.”

“It’s not unrealistic,” Clark argued, continuing quickly when it looked like Lex was going to argue. “But I would agree that it’s not the full picture. There’s no telling how they’d deal with their first fight, or bad days, or in-laws coming to stay for the holidays.”

“Or one of the pair clipping their toenails in bed, or leaving the bathroom door open.” They shared a grimace, and then broke out laughing, Clark breaking just seconds before Lex.

Clark sobered enough to make his final point. “But sometimes couples weather all those storms and they find they can make it work. I figure love is mostly being stubborn enough to overcome the disagreeable aspects. Assuming the agreeable outweighs the disagreeable.”

“Assuming,” Lex repeated.

“My parents were happy together, but they weren’t perfect. I didn’t realize it until I was older, but every time they’d fight, Dad would stomp around in the house with his boots and Mom wouldn’t speak to him to remind him to take them off. She’d iron his socks and jeans instead of his shirts, and he’d thank her for dinner without complimenting it.” Small things, but when Clark had caught on, it had changed his perception of their marriage. “But up to the last, even when they didn’t want to be around each other, there wasn’t really anywhere else either one would rather be.”

“So, for you, love is passive aggressive and overcomes everything so long as no one runs off and forgets to come back?”

“Coming home, being a home for someone, is definitely a part of it. It’s another aspect of family.”

After having dinner with Chloe, his treat, Clark headed back home. Mrs. Quartermain was sitting on the porch in her rocking chair. Clark waved and started up the walk to Lex's house, but she called his name. He detoured across their lawns.

"You're home late," she said by way of greeting.

Some evenings Clark got home later, but she was right. His impromptu discussion with Chloe had taken him well past the time he normally arrived home on Monday's. "I had dinner with a friend."

Her eyes narrowed. "Not that Lois?"

Clark smiled. "No. Her cousin, actually. We went to high school together."

"Hm. Not a girlfriend." It wasn’t a question.

"No. We dated, briefly. It didn't go well." He shrugged. "She's been my best friend since she forgave me."

"And I don't see you bringing anyone into the house except that Lois. No boyfriend either?" Her face softened when he didn't answer immediately. "You don't have to tell me, dear."

"I don't date," Clark finally admitted, looking across the street. "It's complicated beyond being a farm-raised gay kid."

"Love is always complicated," Mrs. Quartermain said wisely. "Except when it's simple."

Clark looked at her and smiled. "I think that's true of life in general."

"For the most part. Some things are always easy, though. Sunsets, for one," she said, pointing toward the pink-tinged horizon. "Only a fool could make that difficult. Now sit here and be simple for a bit. Someone has to eat these cookies."

They were peanut butter and they actually tasted good. Clark limited himself to two, so as to avoid setting a precedent for future batches. Mrs. Quartermain spoke about the neighborhood. It was very general talk about the neighbors and nosy people, but her tone changed and Clark felt suddenly on high alert. 

"I do like it when they acknowledge my power," she added, smiling when it pulled a laugh out of Clark. Her expression turned serious again. "I don't like it when people try to get around me. I am a pretty good judge of character, Clark, and the only people who avoid me are the ones who don't want me to expose what it is they're hiding. And I don't mean the secrets that normal people like you and Lex hide, regardless of how not normal those secrets may seem."

Clark chose not to contradict her about how normal he wasn’t. “Have you seen him, the guy snooping around?”

“No,” she admitted. Clark copied her frown. He had figured out pretty quickly that little escaped her notice because she was constantly on watch, whether sitting on her front porch or looking out her windows. It was possibly chance she had missed the stranger going around their neighborhood, but Clark felt her concern as his own.

“I’ll check with Lois, see if she knows of anyone hanging around and making a nuisance of themselves.” She hadn’t mentioned Lex directly, but Clark felt that he owed her some offered honesty. “I’m going to talk to Lex about it.”

She pursed her lips, but nodded. “It probably concerns him, if someone is snooping around.”

They were apparently thinking alike, and Clark could appreciate that. He still hesitated before sharing, “Sometimes when I come home, I feel like someone is watching.” It wasn’t just at home. Sometimes, he’d be trying to sneak away to attend to business as Superman, and he’d hesitate, walk a little further and turn an extra corner. It was what he had spoken to Chloe about at dinner. She was balancing work as a reporter herself, and her work as a vigilante hacker, but if someone was on to Clark, it was possible she was going to be caught in the cross-fire.

If it was someone looking too closely at Lex, and Clark as a by-product, there was still a chance Chloe or Lois would get mixed up in it by association. Clark was pretty sure his mother was safe, but he and Chloe had discussed setting up security at the farm.

There was a weight to Mrs. Quartermain’s silence. She reached out and touched he back of his hand, the tips of her fingers a little cool from the evening chill. “Be careful, Clark. And continue to look out for him. I’m sure it’s nothing, but I’ll feel better if both you boys are keeping your eyes open.”

Clark didn’t have a chance to bring it up with Lex. The moment they were in the same room, Lex was complaining about writing now that his inspiration was ‘diminished’.

"I can't really kill off Dracula. It doesn't work in today's culture. The bastard managed to live for years before, and aside for a weakness for redheads, he's virtually-"

"Wait, Joseph's a blond," Clark interrupted. He'd felt... odd about it. Red hair fit closer, yes, but. Well. He'd read Lex into the part and any hair at all had seemed wrong, really. A wig he expected to be removed any time hair at all was mentioned.

"Because my editor said blond was the new red. But the point, Clark. The point is that I can't just kill the bastard off and have Joseph go on to a bigger and better thing. I have to give the cock-teasing bastard a happy. Bloody. Ending. Fuck me." And his agent and editor had both agreed that poor little Max, Joseph’s pet project at the start of the fifth book, had to die a horrible, bloody death. For the sake of the plot, and not because the two of them weren’t avid shippers. Clark had come down to find the scotch empty and Lex asleep at the kitchen table after that bit of news had come through.

"Or fuck him," Clark muttered. He wouldn't really hurt someone, not even for breaking Lex's heart, but, well. He was good at stacking cars. Minor vagrancies.

"Oh, trust me, been there, done that, and that's still not going to get this damn story written. It's my own fault for tying the character so tightly to my ideal of the man. If I'd picked... but no. I can't just pick a pretty face. I don't write that way." Lex slumped further. "Tell me again why writing and alcohol shouldn't go together."

"I don't actually know why it shouldn't. But you're not writing now, if you, uh, wanted a drink." Not that he was encouraging it, hell no, but the last time he'd seen Lex happy had been New Year's and the champagne, and Lex and Lois teaming up to tease Clark about his plebian rituals. God, he was enabling.

His realization must have shown on his face, given the way Lex grinned at him. Without alcohol, even. "I know why Lois calls you 'Smallville', you know. And it has nothing to do with the farm boy chic or your origins."

"Oh?" Clark wasn't really curious. He'd figured out a while ago that it was just Lois getting in another barb, another tease. He didn’t think there was a deeper meaning behind it.

"It's the blush. That one, yes." Lex pointed at Clark's face, then dropped his hand. "It's the innocence, the naiveté. Sure, you've seen some things and you're quick to catch on to the world in some regards. But at the heart of you, you'll always be a simple farm kid. Trusting, optimistic, full of platitudes."

It was true enough to be inarguable in Lex’s current mood. "Those aren't bad things. Which you know, because some of that's true for you."

That paused whatever tangent Lex was going to hit on next. His expression changed from the teasing smile he used when picking on Clark to something a little dimmer. "Oh?"

"You display your trust differently, but you let Lois in the house at all, despite knowing how nosy she is. You trusted Mrs. Quartermain enough to strike a bargain with her. And the first day I knew you, you let me know both of those things. Which doesn't mean you trusted me as much instantly, but you let me in, Lex."

There was an unguarded quality to Lex's gaze when Clark stopped speaking, a surprise that Clark felt echoed inside. He'd spoken mostly on instinct, the words ringing true as they were spoken, though he hadn't realized the impact of them until they were out.

"What's optimism if not taking a chance to let people prove you right?" It felt like they were teetering on the brink of something and some instinct told Clark it wasn't time for them to go over the edge. He brushed a hand over his own face, still heated from Lex's earlier comments. "And you blush, too."

He’d apparently stunned Lex silent, which hadn’t been his intention but was a considerable feat regardless. It was probably the best opening he would get for the topic he still needed to address.

“And being trustful doesn’t make me stupid. I was talking to Mrs. Q today,” Somewhere in the conversation, he'd slipped out with the nickname while talking to her, and she'd laughed in delight and told him to continue, “And there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“A stalker?” Lex said flatly. His earlier mirth was gone. “She was looking worried, and that’s what happened last time a fan got a little too close. I do have security measures in place.”

“Oh,” Clark mumbled, surprised. “I—I’m glad you’re already aware.”

Lex shrugged. “It’s happened before. Hopefully, whoever it is will be like the last, because if that’s the case, they’ll be unable to resist Mrs. Quartermain -- which, by the way, Mrs. Q? -- At which point that will be the end of it. She has a way about her, and her grandchildren on the police force.”

She hadn’t mentioned it, but Clark believed it. It helped that the thirteenth book in Lex’s romance series was titled _The Police Officer’s Courtship_. He bit his lip for a moment before asking, “Were you going to say anything to me?”

It was apparently the second time he’d surprised Lex enough to rob him of words, though this pause was considerably shorter. “I should have, probably. But this is the first time that anyone else has been around when it’s happened.”

“Lois—“

“Before you moved in, most of my face to face time with Lois has been scheduled for public cafes and private restaurants, where I have met her after making a considerable effort to lose anyone attempting to follow me. It’s an unfortunate skill that gained relevance when my father and I parted ways a decade ago.” His gaze was vulnerable, but straightforward as he met Clark’s eyes. “You’re the first person to be enmeshed so completely in my space that I have to worry for your safety as well.”

Clark waited, figuring that was a perfect opportunity for Lex to reclaim his space, if he wanted it. How could Clark argue that his own safety wasn’t compromised, that it was unlikely that Lex’s stalker could do anything that would harm Clark? Without being able to tell the truth, Clark would have to accept any decision Lex made in that regard.

“But I’ll take care of it. We’ll have the security system working by tonight and we’ll get you set up. Fingerprint and retina scan, voice matching as tertiary security if the percent matchup of the first two isn’t high enough.” He hesitated. “That is, if you don’t wish to make other arrangements.”

Clark shook his head. “I’m sure your measures will be enough.” And if they weren’t, Clark would feel better being on hand if Lex needed him.

Their infrequent conversations became more frequent, until Clark felt certain he had become Lex's go-to man on writing. He didn’t know who had filled that role before him, if anyone, but it gave him Lex’s attention frequently and it sent the author seeking out Clark enough that Clark could count on seeing Lex at least once a day, most weeks.

"It's not even just the situation with Bruce. The novel before this was difficult, too, in some ways. Maybe it was just that I knew that relationship wasn't going to last."

Clark, who had no idea what to say and even less desire to comment on anything related to Lex's ex. He shrugged and added more butter to the bowl before he went back to mashing the potatoes by hand. 

"Or that the relationship wasn't right. We can salvage the friendship, which for the two of us, says a lot about how strong it was, actually. Stronger than I would have thought. The type of friendship we shouldn't have tried to muddy up with a romantic relationship." The anger having burned out, Lex fell more often than not into a maudlin mood, denying the existence of true love, unicorns, and possibility.

"Or maybe you couldn't know that until you tried it," Clark finally said. "If we knew how every relationship would end before we got into it..." There'd be less broken hearts, for one. And it'd be nice to know that the faith you were putting into someone today would pan out in ten years when they come through on a diversion that kept your secret safe. "There'd be no mystery," he finished lamely.

He didn't have to see Lex's smirk to know it was there. "Mystery is not what I'm after. Not personally. Though in fiction, knowing too much definitely ruins things. And maybe that's the issue with Joseph and his vampire lover-turned-sire. I and my readers know how the story should end, we know that they have to be together by the end, but at this point, it's too obvious how they get there. I've ruined the journey."

Clark sighed, recognizing the sound of Lex leaving his seat at the table. Without turning from the counter, he called, "I'll bring lunch down when it's done!"

He didn't have to carry a plate down to the basement after all, as Lex returned a minute later with his tablet computer. "Not ready to start working on the story itself yet. Just taking notes, reviewing my options. I know some authors prefer to brainstorm with pen and paper, but for me, everything starts on the computer."

"You just can't do anything low-tech," countered Clark, smiling to himself as he put the potatoes down, washed his hands, and checked the roast in the oven. He was pleased to be allowed to be in Lex's company a bit longer. Anyone would be. To add emphasis to his teasing words, he muttered loudly, “Two point security measures to get in the front door, instead of an extra deadbolt or a dog.”

"Says the man who doesn't use my perfectly nice mixer to make mashed potatoes. The alarm isn’t just to keep people out, it’s to notify everyone who needs to know that the house has been compromised.” There was a strident quality to Lex’s voice.

"I know, Lex. I was just teasing." He hadn’t meant to make the other man defensive. Clark closed the oven door and turned back to Lex. "Potatoes now or with the roast?"

Lex shrugged like it didn't matter, but his eyes went to the bowl and lingered. "For the next book, I think I'll use a new genre. I'll stick with the fantastic, but not vampires again, heaven forefend. And not werewolves, whatever my harpy of an editor says about the current rage."

"What comes after vampires and werewolves?" Clark asked curiously, putting a plate down in front of Lex and spooning a healthy heaping of mashed potatoes onto it, with no objection from Lex.

Lex stared at the white lump for a moment before picking up his spoon, tablet put aside on the table for the moment. "I don't know. Creatures of legend, possibly. Or if you're Meyer, aliens."

"Aliens aren't sexy," Clark said quickly. He raised one hand to feign antennae, the other hand still occupied with the potatoes. "Small, pasty, bulbous heads. Big, beady black eyes."

Lex laughed at him, which had been the intention. "Not those kind of aliens, obviously. No. To make it sexy, I think I'd have to combine our current reality and tie it back to the classics. Superman, alien invasions, alien overlord." He scraped the mashed potatoes into a mountain, taking a moment to sculpt a peak, before shoving a bite into his mouth. His face took on a dreamy quality. Clark was ready to applaud his cooking when Lex swallowed and continued on. "Yes, I think that's it. Blue-skinned aliens, with a sexy, well-hung overlord. Come to Earth to take a consort. A human slave talented of body and mouth," he continued, standing up. He leaned over the table for another bite of potatoes, then dropped his napkin beside his plate. "Let me just..."

Clark watched with disappointment as the food was pushed aside and the tablet took up space in front of Lex again.

It was different, to have Lex present and yet inattentive. Clark settled in with his textbook and notes, picked up his pen, then looked up at Lex drawing animatedly on the tablet, brow furrowed.

Clark ducked his head and got down to his own work before Lex had a chance to catch him staring and call him on it. He figured that was the end of their conversation and he occasionally ate from his own small plate, unwilling to leave the table while Lex was still there, but not really hungry. He was surprised when Lex spoke again without lifting his head from where he was tapping away at the screen of his tablet. “Given our local Alien-Superhero-in-Tights, and your bringing up bulbous eyestalks instead, I’d say that you’re avoiding thinking about Superman. Are you trying to hide your superhero crush on him?”

Clark didn’t even have to try to make a face of disgust, his face just twitched naturally at the idea of wanting himself. Lex didn’t look up at all as he divided his attention between food (at least Clark could console himself that his cooking was good enough to battle Lex’s intense focus on his writing) and whatever he was typing out.

Then Lex did look up. “Not going to confirm or deny the allegation, Mr. Kent?”

“I don’t lust after Superman,” Clark answered simply. “And my favorite alien will probably always be ET.”

“Very classic. That explains your initial response.” He put the tablet aside and took another bite of potatoes, all while his gaze lingered on Clark. “I don’t want to attempt to write a botched and terribly insensitive biography of our caped hero, but I will admit that he’s built in a pleasing way.”

“Lois says he’s hot like fire and I’m pretty certain she’s been plotting ways to make him rescue her again,” Clark shared disconsolately. It was a bit disheartening to have her lust after an aspect of Clark that felt less real. Superman existed only in the spaces where he was needed, meaning there was no ‘person’ to get to know, no possible ways they’d have hobbies and interests in common. 

And back when Clark had liked Lois, when he’d been enamored by her at the end of high school, she’d shot him down because they hadn’t had enough in common. It was for the best, since Clark’s feelings faded quickly after that.

“He’s aesthetically pleasing,” Lex said, paraphrasing himself from earlier. “But aside from the speed and the strength and the invulnerability, he’s very human _looking_. And while the idea of being physically compatible to human is probably for the best, if I go that route, there’s a certain expectation that I’m going to push boundaries. There has to be something _alien_ about an alien if I write it.”

“But your alien will still have to be recognizably human,” Clark pointed out. “Like your vampires. There has to be something about them that allows your readers to be sympathetic.”

Lex regarded him, all of his apparent focus on Clark for the first time since he’d started down this tangent. He nodded after a moment and went back to his tablet without saying anything else, though this time around he ignored the food remaining on his plate. Clark sighed and went back to his own food.

Clark was no sooner in the door after class than Lex was at his elbow with a laundry list of questions. "What do you think? Double penis? Or hollow penis? No penis? Retractable penis, tentacles, tubule that gives its own version of a blowjob during coitus. Opinions, Kent?"

"Uh, no. No opinion. Except I don't know why every alien has to have some strange apparatus. What's wrong with a normal penis?" Normal penises were great. Wonderful, in fact. Not that there was anything wrong with extra appendages, either. Though Clark was maybe a little biased.

"On a man? Or even a vampire, nothing. But if I'm going to make the alien suitably exotic, I need something besides blue skin. And no antennae, Mr. Smart-ass." He had his tablet in hand and he was scrolling through notes on it, occasionally waving his hands erratically. He’d obviously been working on this for a while. "Something out of the ordinary. No soul-bonds, no bonding. Addictive cum? Male pregnancy. Egg laying."

Clark ignored the itchy feeling that ran up his sides and settled against his ribs. He raised a hand to stem the flow of words. "I really have no idea. I'm a fan of plain sex. Penis, a-ass, in this case. Tab A, slot B. Missionary really works for me, use of hands and mouth." All theoretical, but Clark was allowed his fantasies.

He had Lex's undivided attention. Surprise surprise. And he knew by the smirk that he was already blushing again. "Kent. Clark. Tell me about these kinks of yours."

He rolled his eyes. "I have kinks. I'm not sharing them with you, just so you can list off the other thousand kinks I don't like or haven't discovered."

Lex shook his head sadly. "You really need to remember sometimes that I'm not Lois."

"You tease like Lois," Clark reminded him, not buying the faint air of hurt. "Maybe for aliens, normal sex would be kinky. Maybe they typically do it upside down in closet-like spaces to stimulate circulation."

It was kind of stupid, but Lex's bark of laughter was worth the slight ding to his pride. "Oh, Clark."

"Just because it's not kinky to you doesn't mean it's not someone else's illicit sexual addiction."

"You have a point, farm boy." His expression was soft, deceptively open. "I think you should tell me your fantasies. Let me guide you in the exploration of your wild side."

Oh, god, if Lex only would. "You just want to paint me blue and attach rubber tubing to various parts of my body."

"That, too. You never know, you might like it." The twist of his mouth said he'd make sure of it.

Clark swallowed, knowing it was an empty promise. Lex teased like Lois did, with that sultry edge that spoke of seduction but always disappeared before an honest invitation was tendered. "Licking. Licking is kinky. Go write about your blue alien giving his human consort a tongue bath." Clark waved toward the kitchen and the basement door beyond, but was surprised when Lex actually started heading that way. "Wait, was that a good suggestion?"

Lex turned back with a smirk. "You should try it out and tell me how kinky you think it is."

In the give and flow of their banter, Clark couldn't resist trying to get in the last shot. "You know, sex doesn't have to be kinky to be good."

To his surprise, Lex let him have it. He gave Clark a look that was short but searching before he was through the door and around the wall, out of a normal human's range of sight. Clark turned toward the stairs to the second floor before he could give in to the temptation to follow him all the way down with his x-ray vision. He did that far too often as it was.

Those little looks of Lex’s were becoming more common, much like the flirtatious offers. It made Clark wonder if there wasn’t a hint of sincerity in the teasing offers. It was difficult, continually convincing himself he was projecting.

Even if Lex was sincere, what was Clark going to do about it? Lex had opened up to him so much since Clark had come to live with him, even more so once his relationship with his ex had dissolved. Clark trusted Lex, and it seemed mutual, but trusting Lex with his safety was different from trusting him with his heart. Clark couldn’t give parts of himself without handing over the rest.

Once he had discovered his own origins, Clark’s worst fear had been ending up on a metal table in a lab. Worst case scenario of telling Lex wasn’t that dire (Clark had trust enough in that), but Clark couldn’t bear the thought of having to leave, of Lex pulling away and locking Clark out of his life. He’d rather continue to lie to Lex and keep his unearned trust.

The kitchen was unnaturally still for not being empty. Clark stopped at the threshold and looked in at Lex seated at the table. His heels were up on the chair opposite, head tipped back, his hands folded in his lap. It was no position Clark had ever seen before, nor one that he would have imagined for Lex.

Despite his eyes being closed, the pace of his breathing and the frown marring his brows gave away that Lex was awake. Awake and unaware of company. The polite thing to do would be to turn and leave, or at the very least announce is presence, but Clark did neither. He could cite to himself multiple reasons or excuses, but the simple truth was that Lex was always entrancing, his stillness more so for its novelty.

Clark kept quiet even as he recognized a shift in position. Chin tilting down, forehead smoothing out, lips turning up at the corner. When Lex opened his eyes and caught Clark's gaze with no hint of surprise, Clark could do nothing but smile helplessly back at him.

"Clark," Lex said in greeting, drawing his heels off the other chair and sitting up straighter. "Dilemma for the day. Are you ready for this?"

"Depends," Clark answered, stepping onto the tile and taking his normal seat. "Is it going to involve my sex life?"

Lex's smile widened dangerously. "It could. Depends on your sex life, I suppose." He had a short laugh at Clark's expense and then leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table as he cupped his chin. He looked a little childish and he sealed the effect by pitching his voice into a higher, more childish pitch. He was either trying to sound like a kid or a woman, without quite succeeding in either. "So, Clark, tell me all about baking."

He somehow made 'baking' sound like a lewd act, which was why it took a second too long for the request to make sense. "Baking?" Clark asked for clarity. He looked at the oven that he was certain hadn’t ever been used before he started living in the house, then returned his gaze to Lex. "Baking."

"Baking," Lex repeated, dropping the pose and leaning back in his chair. "Specifically apples. Do you do anything special to the apples before you toss them in the crust?"

"You couldn't just look up recipes?"

Lex waved a hand, dismissing that idea. "Please. I have tried recipes from the internet and I assure you the people who post them either don't know how to bake or don't know how to explain the process." He paused, following Clark's gaze to the oven before he admitted, "The oven is newer than the house. Considerably newer. And it's not the first I've bought. Now tell me about baking."

"First tell me how this relates to aliens." He knew how baking related to himself, or he to it, but he didn’t know what kind of connection Lex might have made and he was curious. Lex knew a lot of things, and it would be fascinating if he was anywhere close to reality.

"It's not the alien sex slave story," Lex said. "And I'd ask Mrs. Quartermain, given that she's largely responsible for the continuation of the romance series, but as dear as she is, her baking isn't something I'd want to describe for the readers."

That made more sense. Clark pushed down the tiny disappointment that pinged in his heart and stood. "Okay. Do you want to get your apron?"

That got him a blank look as Lex tilted his head back to keep his eyes on Clark's face. "Why do I need an apron?"

"Because the best way to learn about it is to do it. We are stocked for cookies, apple pies, or an apple crisp." He'd been planning to bake on Sunday evening for a surprise for Chloe and Lois on Monday, but they had plenty of ingredients for multiple batches of any of it and a sacrifice for a good cause.

"Can you do an apple cookie?" Lex asked dryly, slowly rising off the chair. He didn't sound enthusiastic, but there was excitement in his eyes, in the way he bounced on his feet once he was standing up.

Clark thought about the question for a moment, then decided it was probably past time Lex was introduced to his mother in some form. He knew she'd be tickled by the call and if anyone knew how to put apples into cookies, it'd be his Mom. "We should ask an expert that question."


	5. Interlude Two

_The great lord Kal lay sprawled across his dais, ~~blue~~ golden skin gleaming in the captured sunlight of the crystals. "Come before me, human."_

_Alexander balked, but the guards pushed him forward. The message was clear; he would comply, through his own volition or by force. He raised his head and walked forward. There was a noise behind him as he put a foot upon the first step, a warning barely heard before Kal raised his hand and the noise was silent. Feeling certain he was overstepping, Alexander continued forward…_

Lex considered interrupting it there, having another character protest, but decided against it. He backspaced over the second half of the sentence and continued writing.

_Alexander placed a foot on the second step, bravado and duty pressing him forward._

_The alien watched him with his unearthly ~~green~~ ~~purple~~ green eyes.”_

_Alexander reached the top of the steps and then stood, waiting. Kal's eyes wandered hotly over him, taking in the nakedness they'd forced on him, the half-hard cock that neither fear nor will could eliminate, not in the presence of-- No, he was not going to consider the alien's aesthetic beauty._

_"Kneel," Kal ordered. Alexander went, conscious of the golden groin as it came to eye level, the protrusion of an erection that was near-human and familiar enough to make his mouth water. Over the top of his head, Kal's next command went to the rest of the room. "Leave us."_

_His desire was hard to fight. He focused on the discomfort of his position, the hard floor beneath him, the forced exhibitionism that had never been his kink. The submissive role that suited him sexually. Why could he not keep his focus?_

_A large, golden hand reached for him, carded gently through the red of his hair--_

"I like the bald," Clark said at his shoulder.

A quick tap of keys reduced the text window. "Rule number something, because I haven't ever needed to actually write them out: do not read anything I don't put into your hands with a bow tie. Not on my computer, not any of the printouts I use to review the work myself."

"Sorry." Clark retreated, started toward the counter where he had laid food out earlier, but stopped. "Um. Do you want me to stay out of the kitchen for a while?"

"Yes," he said brusquely, bringing the window back up. "No," he said just as quickly. Clark hadn’t even started putting the food away, Lex had changed his mind so quickly. He sighed. "Sorry."

"I am, too," Clark said, leaning back against the counter and offering Lex an apologetic look. "I won't read anything you don't want me to." His pose wasn’t quite flirtatious, but he was stretched into a long, bowed line that showed off the length and leanness of him very nicely.

If his words could invoke that image for his readers, this novel would fly off the shelves.

_"I do not know enough of your Earth to find the word that suits you best. Your body and face please me." The hand left Alexander's head as long legs splayed to either side of his body. "But now I wish for your hands to please me. It may take time, but I would have you learn through practice."_

_Given not so much as leave to touch but a directive to do so, Alexander reached forward and stilled the trembling of his hand on Kal's knee. He felt the warmth in the air above the alien's skin, but at first touch, he was surprised by the living fire. His mind began warring with itself again, this time the scientist coming to the fore in an effort to catalog temperature and the possible implications of it._

_He thrust the curiosity aside and closed his mind to all but the lover, the role demanded of him in this situation. Offering pleasure was something he could do, even on an unlearned and wholly alien lover. And though Kal had commanded his hands, Alexander allowed the lover in himself his desire and followed hands with a mouth to that golden skin._

_There was no sound, of pleasure or warning. He was suddenly pulled into the alien's lap by strong hands on his upper arms lifting him. He feared he had truly erred, beyond his earlier daring and with far worse consequences. The alien's gaze was close. "I have seen this. The touch of mouth. I understand its use for sex, but I did not ask you for it. Your hands."_

_Without further warning, he was released to sit straddled over the alien’s knees, hands hanging uselessly in the air between them. His own erection was fuller than before and resting, discontentedly, on the alien's thighs. Fear and excitement twined together for an erotic thrill._

_'Learn through practice', the alien had said. Alexander leaned forward to set his hands to the alien's chest and tried to keep his breathing under control._

The room was silent when his fingers stilled over the keyboard. Clark shifted, but didn't say anything. Lex glared silently at the screen before formulating his complaint to Clark. "You know what I'm tired of? I'm tired of writing a character who revels in the fear, or gets off on the unknown and the mystery."

Clark watched him with wide eyes. Lex could read his curiosity, almost as much as his concern. “Then what is it you do want?”

That was a question to consider, but Lex had to be honest that when it came to his writing, what he absolutely wanted was less important than what his editor, agent, and audience wanted. And from feedback on _Bite_ and the rest of the vampire novels told him was that mystery-and-fear-compelled porn sold really, terrifyingly well. “I want to write a book that will sell.”

“Do you ever write just for… pleasure?” 

Lex had struggled to keep Clark out of the alien story and instead made his alien overlord into everything he thought was antithesis to Clark: imperious, experienced, cold. The similarities to Bruce were unsettling, but he pushed for it, imagined a Mirror verse Clark with a goatee and blue skin. It was so hard to let that imaginary Clark take hold of his mind when the real thing was puttering around the kitchen.

He had told himself he was going to keep this novel away from his personal life, but he was only halfway into a scene that felt forced and wrong when another idea occurred to him. Lex glanced at Clark again, who had finally turned back to do whatever it is he did with raw ingredients before turning them into delicious meals. He shouldn’t, but he was so very bad at denying himself what he wanted, either.

_The Overlord dragged Alexander through the halls of the ship, his punishing grip no doubt leaving bruises that would take weeks to fade. Alexander couldn't tell if the bruises the alien left on him were a result of the thing’s brute strength, or if Alexander was bruising easier because of malnourishment. He didn't know what it was he was being forced to eat to survive, but the meals were not recognizable in look, taste, or texture. Alexander thought about anemia and scurvy instead of the possibility of his own death._

_The door at the end of this corridor opened with the same swish as all the others, and there was nothing at first to set the room apart from any other. It was not until the Overlord released him that Alexander recognized elements in the room that were familiar. A bed, a low table with books. Another table, low to the ground, along the back wall, taken over with covered dishes._

_It was the first time he’d been alone with the Overlord, the first time there was no audience to the things the creature did to him, and forced Alexander to do to him. “Sit,” the alien commanded, gesturing toward the lower table and the cushions scattered around the floor around it._

_It was beyond Alexander to argue at that point, though he could feel all the words rising in the back of his throat like bile. He stumbled once in crossing the small room, but he kept his chin high and his back straight as he sat down._

_He wasn’t conscious of the alien following, but then the opaque crystal covers from the dishes and Alexander’s stomach twisted at the sight of familiar foods. It was incongruous with the glass and metal surroundings and it was far from the bland, taupe-colored pastes they consumed. Alexander couldn’t stop his eyes from wandering between steak and ham, cubed potatoes that looked to be cooked in butter, dinner rolls and vegetables that he’d taken for granted most of his life. And at the center of it all was the perfect, round dish of lattice crust apple pie._

_Kal’s voice was deep, but soft. “You are not sustained. Eat.”_

_Alexander looked up instead of obeying, hearing the words at once as an order and an entreaty. “Why?”_

_“Because I have ordered it,” the alien said firmly._

_He had felt this before, this instinct that told him that what appeared before him was not truly what it appeared. Alexander trusted his instincts, he’d had to for so long, but he’d been doubting himself. No more would he doubt. “Why?” he asked again._

_The alien stared back at him for a long time before answering, but he did eventually answer. “Because I would have you well.” It was not in what the alien said, Alexander thought, or even in how the words were spoken. The alien was ever so careful, especially in front of his subordinates. It was in the lack of things said, in how guarded this creature was to appear ever indifferent of Alexander’s well-being, but interested in him nonetheless._

_“If it mattered so much to you that I was sustained, you could well mix all of this into the paste you serve yourselves. The nutrients would be received regardless of the taste of it. That is how you eat, after all. Why?”_

_“Because when I speak of you being well, I mean not only your body. This is ‘comfort food’, is it not? Are you not comforted?”_

_Alexander bit back his first retort and instead looked again at the spread of food before him. He picked up the fork laid out for him, then looked up again. “I am, actually.”_

_The alien hesitated to respond and in that moment, Alexander saw it, the crack in the alien’s defenses, the weakness he’d been sent to uncover._

Discretion and valor aside, Lex knew he was a coward when he put away his tablet for the moment, rolled up the portable keyboard, and stood away from the kitchen table. “I’m going to see if Mrs. Quartermain has baked her daily allotment.”

Clark grinned at him over his shoulder. “Please make sure to tell Mrs. Q I asked you to bring some home.”

“You already have leave to call her by a nickname, you can probably stop buttering her up now,” Lex said.

“It’s not about being in her good graces, Lex. It’s about reminding the people you care about that they’re in yours.”

Of course it was. Lex gave him a look he hoped indicated that he didn’t buy that for a second, and Clark’s quiet laugh helped push him out the door. Better to escape while he could before Clark’s quiet and wholesome charisma induced him to linger further. Forever.

Mrs. Quartermain was on her porch when he cut through the grass of their yards toward it. She waved as he called up a hello to her before taking the steps up quickly. She gestured toward the door and let him open it for her and follow after without explaining why he was there.

All his other valid reasons aside, this was one of the main reasons he was forever allied to Constance Quartermain; no other place had been so wholly welcomed to him, no other person aside from Lois had ever adopted him so completely that even when he could find no excuse to be there could he simply show up anyway and know that his presence would be accepted.

"I like your young man," Mrs. Quartermain said as she allowed Lex to pick up the tea service and carry it into the front room.

"Could we speak of something else, please?" he asked as he settled the tray and then set to pouring for each of them. He was aware of her gaze on him as he went through the motions and took his seat. 

"We could," she answered. "But why discuss anything else when he will be at the forefront of your mind, Lex?"

"Because I haven't decided how I want to think of him." The possessive she'd included, 'your young man' was as tempting as a warm kitchen and the smell of herbs that had overtaken it.

She tutted as she leaned back in the chair opposite. "I can believe that, at least. Though I rather think he knows what to make of you already."

Lex eyed her carefully. "What did he say when he came over?"

For a moment, she looked too imperious to answer him, her teacup and saucer held high. Then she cracked a smile again. "Very little, actually. I'm starting to think his stomach is lead-lined and his taste buds are dead, since he mostly ate my cookies and listened to me prattle on."

He'd long suspected that the cookies were not an accident, but she'd never confirmed it before. "My lady, you are delightedly devious."

Mrs. Quartermain accepted that with the same grace as the rest of his compliments. "Thank you, Lex. Now, if we are not discussing a certain young man, what shall we talk about today? Your new book, perhaps?"

He hesitated, because he'd already managed to intertwine Clark with the new story in exactly the way he hadn't wanted to, similar to what he'd done with Bruce. But if there was any insight to be gained from his friend and confidant, then perhaps this was just the tact he needed. "It's about aliens," he led in.

"Oh," she said delightedly, leaning forward. "Are they very similar to us?"

Because Lex truly could not avoid thinking of the man for more than a few minutes at a time, the first thing that came to mind at Mrs. Quartermain’s question was Clark. “They’re physically different and they come off as cold and austere. But I want to make them sympathetic.”


	6. Chapter Three

Clark was tense yet he couldn’t pinpoint the exact reason why. The security measures that Lex had activated seemed to reassure Lex, but Clark just couldn’t relax. He still got the sense of something amiss in their neighborhood, but couldn’t find it. He didn’t see anyone unusual on the streets, didn’t hear any unusual conversations.

He’d even done a scan for recording devices, tuning his hearing to electronic frequencies, but there was nothing. He’d wanted to talk to Lex, but the house had been silent lately, the common areas empty. Lex had moved into that phase of his writing where he was in the basement most of the time. Clark had set up a side table outside the door so he could leave Lex meals. When Clark had come home today, there was a stack of dirty dishes in the sink and a missing plate of leftovers from the fridge, so he knew Lex had come upstairs at some point while Clark had been out.

It had been a long day, too, so he wasn’t surprised he’d missed Lex, just disappointed. Clark had turned in the last chapters of his thesis, written an article for the paper on top of his normal work chores, and been out three times during the day as Superman. It had been a simple, ordinary day until he’d pulled his old car into the neighborhood, and then it was like he’d tripped an invisible alarm, going on full alert as he came home.

But there had been nothing outside. Even when it had gotten dark and Clark had taken the precaution of changing into dark clothes to skulk suspiciously around the neighborhood, he found nothing to explain the unease plaguing him. Now he was back in the house and Clark was tense and lonely, edging toward fatigue but still keyed up in a way a hot shower hadn’t been able to unwind.

The clock ticked over another minute and Clark stared harder at the page before him, hoping the words would make sense on the next read-through. They didn't. It was too late at night and he was too tired, but...

He sighed and looked toward the basement door. Four days and sure, he could 'see' Lex whenever he wanted, but they hadn't actually been in the same room since Clark had chased Lex away with his chatter. Lex had stayed next door with Mrs. Q through dinner and Clark had simply wrapped up the leftovers and left heating directions on them before he’d gone to hide in the library. Clark missed him. The conversation, the teasing, the way Lex stared through him sometimes and right at him at others.

"You look lonely."

The quiet voice was such a surprise that Clark thought he was hearing things for a moment. Especially since the voice came not from the basement but from the back door.

He stared as Lex came in and took off his jacket. "It's a bit late for you, isn't it?"

"Um." Clark looked at the clock again, then at Lex. "I don't have an actual bedtime, per se."

Lex smiled at him, though it was rough around the edges. He looked as tired and lonely as Clark felt.

"Did you have a good night out?" It was a bit too much to stare at Lex through the walls like the love-sick fool he was. He'd barely resisted temptation and now he was glad he had. If he'd known Lex was gone... god, he could just imagine running out of the house and all over Metropolis in search of his wayward housemate, particularly with the way he felt about the neighborhood right now.

"Clubbing," Lex offered by way of explanation. His attire seemed ill-fitting for a night out, but Clark's experience was limited to one bad summer as a kid. Still, for certain kinds of clubs, you only had to look good, and Lex was always capable of that.

He didn't want to ask, he really didn't need to know, but the question spilled out. "Any luck?" He couldn’t imagine anyone turning Lex down in his close-fitting pants and soft-looking, lavender-colored silk shirt. It was Lex’s typical attire, but Clark couldn’t deny having multiple fantasies about stripping Lex out of it.

Lex looked at him for a moment, eyes blank. In that moment, he was more of a stranger than he'd ever been, even before they'd exchanged introductions. Then Lex turned around to get a bottle of Tynant out of the fridge and when he turned back, the expression was gone. His smile wry, he shook his head. "Not really."

Clark licked his lips and gestured at the chair across from him. "I'm here if you want to, uh..."

"Dwell on the details of a particularly uninteresting and uninspiring night? No, thanks."

"Right." Clark looked down at his pages once again.

The other chair scraped as Lex pulled it out and took a seat, his head cocked to the side and his eyes assessing Clark. "I don't think you were waiting up for me, because I don't think you knew I was gone. But were you waiting up for me?"

Clark was blushing, he knew he was. His choices were both less than pleasant. Lie and probably irritate Lex who could see through him. Or admit the pathetic truth, which is that he had been waiting up hoping that hunger or thirst would eventually drive Lex up the stairs and into Clark's space.

Lex's smile turned to a smirk. "Clark Kent, are you staging a one man intervention?"

"No?" He wouldn't have a clue what he was trying to intervene, but he let his voice wobble on the answer.

Lex put his bottle on the table, toward the center, then crossed his arms over the area in front of him and leaned toward Clark. "Lois told you, didn't she?"

Clark hesitated, then told the truth in as dishonest a manner as he could. "Lois has told me absolutely nothing. At all. About you."

The other man scoffed as he leaned back. "I should have known. This is why she didn't like Bruce, you know. Said she could tell with the first book that I was trying to write myself a fantasy that escaped the reality I knew I was living."

"Maybe... maybe this goes along with the no alcohol while writing rule?"

"Pairing bad relationships with books... could be. Bruce dumping me certainly hasn't helped me finish the fifth book." The light left his eyes and his face closed down. Clark was more effectively shut out than a closed door could manage.

It was worse than the period right after the breakup, because at least then Lex had still been present, to some extent. Angry and hurt, but he hadn't ever looked so vacant. Clark needed to do or say something, because between the distance of strangers and closed off acquaintance, Lex was farther away than Clark could stand.

Lex continued on. "I didn't want to do it this time. I'm not looking to start another relationship just to write this book. But I thought... just a face. Just a body. One night, one image to get me started. I can fill in the romance and the sex, from memory and imagination." Arms back on the table, Lex's head now hung over them.

It was too late to make him something to eat and Clark really didn't like the idea of getting out the liquor, though he would if Lex asked. And offering Lex a place in Clark's bed... not another relationship, right. Clark wasn't capable of less. He didn’t like the idea of being discarded at novel’s end, either. Lex obviously hadn’t been the one to end things with Bruce, but he’d confided in Clark enough to admit that the relationship had always had a deadline.

He floundered for something, a change of topic, a 'how was the weather' that wasn't quite as lame as that. "How hard is it to wash off blue body paint?" was what came out.

Lex tilted his head and looked at Clark for a moment, then shook his head. "Oh, Kent. You are too cute. Going to let me paint you blue after all?"

He shouldn't, he really shouldn't, but, "Not all of me."

Lex perked up. "Face, chest, shoulders, and arms. No shirt."

"An undershirt?"

"Why would an alien overlord wear a shirt? My room in five, farm boy." And then Lex was off again, beautifully animated. Beautiful.

Clark dragged himself out of his chair. He thought about stripping down in Lex's room, the intimacy of disrobing in front of someone he wanted as a lover. Instead, he unbuttoned his flannel shirt and folded it over the back of the kitchen chair he'd claimed as his own, then followed slowly in Lex's wake, chest and torso covered by a white undershirt he'd got three for five dollars. 

He tried to lift his head and imbue himself with some measure of assurance before he entered Lex's space. He'd only been in the room a few times, to bring Lex a dish or two, to help put him to bed after New Year's.

"You were serious about the undershirt?" Lex stared at him quixotically, then shrugged. "Fine. I guess as far as clothing goes, I can envision it as some kind of leather halter. Space leather halter." His thoughts drew him inward as he thought about the sartorial choices of aliens and Clark tried to find a place to sit.

"Should I-" 

"Stay standing for a moment," Lex requested. He hefted a blue tub. "The tank top will do, I guess." The clinical way he said it rubbed salt in the wound of his disinterest, and Clark looked at the wall over his shoulder and tried to remember that his crush had always been unrequited and he was used to it and it was _fine_.

The first touch of paint was cool, but not unpleasant. Room temperature cool. Clark shivered under the touch of Lex's hand, knowing it'd be blamed on the paint.

Sure enough, Lex apologized and spent a moment warming the next scoop of paint in his hand. "It didn't start with Bruce, this habit of using people in my life as models for characters. But Bruce was the first, and only time, where I let the boundary between this reality and the reality I was building fade. Lois was right about that. I ignored the faults I'd always recognized in Bruce, in us as a couple, because they had no place in the story. I ignored the actual limits of our relationship because it suited me to view it through the lens of my books.”

His fingers brushed over Clark's right shoulder, the paint warmer than before. Clark forced himself to keep still. He curled his hands into fists to keep from reaching out. He was very aware of the flimsy barrier offered by his shirt, the way it hung just lose enough to hide any unusual shaping around his lower ribs and torso. It was impossible to be motionless when so much of him wanted to push and lean and pull itself into Lex’s space.

"It's part of my process now. To pull heavily from those around me for inspiration." Lex globbed more of the paint onto Clark's left shoulder then spread it around with his fingers. It was a bit like having suntan lotion spread on his skin, and it brought to mind images of summertime and Lana. Unrequited love. "And now it's hard to finish the vamp thing, writing 'Bruce' in every other sentence."

"So, when you're writing your alien overlord, you'll be writing in my name?" Clark kept his chin up, not looking Lex directly in the face as he came around in front and spread paint over Clark's neck and collar bone. His fingers seemed to slow before resuming their previous pace, spreading blue paint over the exposed expanse of skin available.

"Well, no offense, but Clark just doesn't strike me as a sexy name. And," he hesitated, looking up at Clark. "We're not-- We aren’t--" Whatever they weren't, Lex's eyes widened. He started to reach up, looked at his hand, and then muttered a quiet, "Fuck it" before curving his hand around the back of Clark's neck and pulling him down.

Clark's doubts rose and were squashed before their lips met. He brought his hands up to Lex's arms as he melted into Lex's mouth. The kiss was soft and hard, gentle where Lex made it so, even with the firmness of his lips and the sharp taste of whisky on his tongue.

After a period where Lex’s hand left his neck and roamed down his back, Clark felt the touch of Lex's hands at the bottom edge of his shirt, just brushing the skin above his jeans. Clark shuddered at the feel even as panic erupted in his chest. "I can't," he hissed, pushing Lex back by the arms.

Anger flitted across Lex's face, ugly but not surprising. "I get it. Now let go of me."

"Lex," Clark said, but he couldn't find the words to explain. He pulled back slowly, releasing his grip on Lex's arms and getting a good look at the smudges of paint that had transferred to Lex’s shirt. He stepped back until his legs hit Lex’s bed and then he tumbled down.

"That was inappropriate," Lex said, head turned away. It took Clark a moment to realize that Lex's anger was directed inward, at himself. "I’m sorry. You should probably go."

"Probably," Clark agreed hoarsely, self-preservation screaming at him to do just that. He didn't know Lex, not well enough. Not enough to trust him, to put so much faith into one man. Except he'd read the books and he knew enough of Lex to know how much of himself he wrote into the character of Joseph. He’d lived with him, as much as Lex let anybody in. He probably knew Lex better than anybody but Lois. Even Bruce didn’t know Lex, if he had let him go. Clark knew enough of Lex to love him. 

Lex turned his head and pinned him with a stare. "You're not doing very well with the concept of 'go'."

Do or do not. Clark returned his gaze. "There's something you should know about me."

"You're a cock-tease? Or easily confused? Or a virgin?"

"Possibly, sometimes, and yes. Mostly. But that's not it." He pushed off the bed and reached for the edge of his shirt, continuing the job he hadn't let Lex finish.

"Oh, a tease and a show," Lex snarked, though he watched. Voyeurism as punishment in his mind, perhaps.

Clark swallowed and continued, pulling the tank off and letting it dangle from his fingers as he stood bare from the waist up. It would take a moment. Moving would make it more obvious, but Clark held himself immobile again. He knew the moment Lex saw them by the way his eyes widened. His anger melted away into shock as he withdrew a step. 

Clark looked down, unable to watch the rest of Lex's reaction. He lived daily with the itch to move, the sense of a stillness that was unnatural to him, but he’d had years to resist this part of himself, to shove it down and ignore the instinct that told him to reach with more than his arms, to touch the world with more than the pads of his fingers.

The slamming of a door startled him and he looked up. A quick scan into Lex's bathroom confirmed his location, as well as his frightened form searching for... something. Probably a weapon. His heartbeat was rapid.

Clark swallowed the bile in his throat and fought back the urge to flee right then, to make his own escape, but first he knocked on the door and heard the sudden stillness from the other side. "Lex, I. I'm going upstairs. To my room. It's sa- safe to come out."

He closed the hall door a few seconds later, hard enough that it probably shook the house. He only hoped it would send Lex the message that he'd left Lex's space. He couldn't bring himself to see if the other, no, the _man_ came out of the bathroom. 

Going upstairs to his room, he tossed aside his shirt before he laid down on his bed. Then he remembered the paint, and when he stood up, there was a blue impression of his shoulders on the sheet and the bottom edge of the pillowcase. At least it was only the sheet, the blankets were still piled at the foot of the bed where he’d kicked them that morning.

He got up and stripped the bed with a few jerks at the material that caused a tear at one corner, before putting everything in a pile in the corner, then sitting beside it, knees drawn up so he could wrap his arms around them.

The house was silent and empty as dawn approached. Clark thought about making breakfast, but he couldn't bring himself to go through the motions. The idea of going to work wasn't any more enticing, and it was the only thing he had scheduled. He called and left Perry a voicemail hours before he knew the editor would be in his office, and had then sent two identical texts to his mother and Chloe.

_I told Lex. In what's probably the worst way I could have told him. He was terrified._

He didn’t want to leave, because he was afraid he’d never be able to return, but Clark couldn’t stay knowing that Lex was hiding from him. Putting his phone in his pocket, he looked around his room, thinking how much like a home it had become. There wasn't anything else that needed doing. Clark quietly headed downstairs. He checked on Lex, only to find the basement empty. There was no reason to check what he was sure was an empty house, but Clark couldn’t resist seeking Lex out, no matter how pointless it was to do so.

Lex’s heart rate was still accelerated, but it was slower than before. He was standing in the dark near the front door, which at least put Lex closer to the exit than Clark, unlike in the basement where Clark had barred the doorway without meaning to. It was while Clark’s hearing was extended that he heard the quiet tread approaching the house, near the window where Lex was standing still.

He could hear Lex’s body, hear someone approaching the house, and that was it. No extra heartbeat… and as foolish as it seemed, Clark had a sudden explanation for the elusiveness of the stalker. A stalker who was much closer to Lex than Clark was at the moment and whose motives were unknown.

Clark wanted to fly to his side and protect him, but when Lex turned to look at him, the fear was still there. Clark held back and raised his hands in the air. “I know you probably don’t trust me and I don’t blame you, but please come away from the window.”

The sound of movement outside had stopped, for a moment. Then Lex stepped toward Clark and there was a cry of anger from outside, then a body came in through the window. The creature might have once been a man, but in the light from the street that faintly illuminated the room, its face was disfigured, a distended mouth taking up a disproportionate amount of focus, teeth extended into fangs. Clark met it part way in, moving around Lex and tackling the thing from the side.

It was strong, though not as strong as some of the mutants Clark had dealt with in Smallville. It wasn’t as strong as Clark himself, who managed to get the thing pinned to the floor outside the library. It struggled, but couldn’t fight Clark off. He held it tight enough to hold and turned his head to check on Lex, who had a—“Why do you have a stake?”

“I like props when I write,” Lex answered numbly. He pointed the pointy end of the wooden stake at the vampire under Clark. “Now that you’ve failed to kill me, why were you stalking me?”

The thing made a sound between a hiss and a laugh. “I didn’t, and I wasn’t.”

There was no warning but instinct, the same sense of unease Clark had been unable to pinpoint for weeks, but he pushed himself off the floor and at Lex before his hearing registered an object moving at speed through air. He blocked Lex against the wall, felt the length of the stake press against his back before there were suddenly more figures in the house. “So much for the alarm system,” Lex muttered.

Clark counted four altogether, but that might not have been accurate if there were more standing motionless nearby. Clark checked x-ray vision, but without being able to turn in a full circle, there were blind spots. Still, it looked like four. They moved quickly, but Clark could fly. Aside from Impulse, he’d never found any being who could beat him in a race. Clark was slower with a passenger, given human limitations, but he would like his odds better when he knew they weren’t surrounded.

“I’ll get you out of here,” he promised Lex.

Lex put a hand on Clark’s shoulder. “And go where, Clark? I’m going to guess there aren’t a lot of places to hide.”

Then Clark would fight if it came to that. “It’s worth a try.”

“So is the stake,” Lex said firmly. His hand slipped from Clark’s shoulder down his arm, and when Lex had found his hand, he put the stake in it. “The police have an eighteen minute response time this time of night, so feel free to do what you have to do to keep us standing for another sixteen minutes.”

Clark pushed the stake back towards Lex. “Let’s keep that as our second to last resort.” He wasn’t certain what the moral answer was when talking about killing the undead, but the four figures weren’t converging yet. If there was a chance they could safely talk their way through this, that had to be one of Clark’s first options. “What do you want?”

The first creature was up off the floor, its dark eyes glittering. “We want Luthor.”

“Not an option,” Clark informed it. “Unless you just want his autograph.”

“Autographs,” Lex repeated. His head thumped down between Clark’s shoulder blades. “You’re snarky in the face of danger, of course you are.”

Clark couldn’t really follow Lex’s logic, not and keep the four vampires under scrutiny while keeping his hearing open for what else might lie behind them in the night, but he asked anyway, “What?” He missed Lex’s response, his ears picking up an approaching heartbeat. She was quiet, but Mrs. Q was too old to move without sound and Clark could tell by the movement of their heads toward the door the moment the vampires heard her approach also. “Shit.”

“Language,” Lex chided. He tugged the stake out of Clark’s grip. “Out is better than in, get me there.”

It was permission enough. Clark spun to wrap Lex in his arms. The vampires were blocking the window to the left of the door, but Clark was faster and stronger. He went through the door, effectively breaking the frame and pulling the hinges partway off, but it was worth it when he could drop Lex with Mrs. Q and then return to the fight.

As quick as he had been, the vampires had already started to follow, one through the window and one through the door, but Clark grabbed one in each hand, shoved them into their fellows behind them, and then followed them back into the house before they could right themselves.

“What is it you want?” he asked, standing firmly.

He received three hisses in response, but the forerunner was regarding Clark darkly. “You are not human. Does he exploit you also?”

“Only for food,” Clark answered, quietly turning the words over despite the glibness of his answer.’

“You are but one obstacle. We are legion, daywalker. How can you hope to stop us?”

Clark might have been blocking their way out of the house, but he couldn’t keep the vampire from looking out or Lex and Mrs. Q from looking in. He wasn’t expecting the sound of a shotgun cocking and when the shot rang out and the vampire to his right disappeared in a flash of flames and ash, Clark flinched away himself.

Outside, Clark heard Lex say to Mrs. Q, “So, obviously the explanation for your garlicky cookies has nothing at all to do with vision difficulties in reading the recipe.”

“Lex, dear, you knew that.”

Clark straightened and looked at the first vampire again. “Don’t make me ask again.”

The creature sneered. “There are only so many bullets in a gun.”

“The sun is rising!” Mrs. Q yelled. “Get them outside, Clark!”

Clark managed to grab two of the three, the speaker getting away from him and slipping away through the pre-dawn lightening darkness. It was gone before he could blink. He started to follow outside with his captives and then hesitated. “Will it kill them?”

Mrs. Q was holding a shotgun aimed toward the house, Lex standing calmly beside her (heart rate steady, still elevated slightly, but slower than before). “Is that really a problem, Clark?”

He looked at her, and then at Lex, who was staring back at him. The vampires struggled against his grip and he raised them high enough from the floor so they could not get purchase, shaking the one in his right arm when the thing tried to kick against the damaged door frame.

Mrs. Q lowered her shotgun, then handed it to Lex, who took it and brought it up to his shoulder in a smooth, practiced motion. She approached. “I’ll take that as a yes. Clark, they’re not redeemable. Not this branch of them. The _Kist_ are pure monsters.”

The word sparked a memory in Clark, who searched out Lex’s gaze again and found Lex’s gaze pinned with horror and wonder on Mrs. Q. Clark asked, “The villains in _Taste of Blood_?”

“I made that up,” Lex protested, but the words were weak.

She sighed as they came onto the porch. She took a napkin out of her pocket and unwrapped it to reveal a silver flask. “There’s a lot of make believe out there in the world that is true.” She looked up at the vampires, who hissed at her as she unscrewed the cap on the flask. “But your writing is frightening accurate in a lot of regards, Lex. Clark, while there are covens and treaties who would be worthy of your sympathy, this group is not. Their lives have already stopped and all they are is suffering. The suffering of others, of innocents.”

“Are you _quoting my book_?” Lex demanded, sounding strangled.

“It’s not a choice you’re making, Clark, it’s not a mark against you that you can’t save them, because they are not able to be saved. Come out into the sunlight.”

In the sunlight, where the squirming, hissing creatures would no doubt also turn to flame and ash as their companion had. 

“Or they will come back for Lex. Their brethren will come for him again, now that he’s targeted. If you cannot kill these two, you may has well kill Lex with your own hands, because you can’t protect him from the hordes unless you are willing to put them down.”

“Why does it have to be murder? There has to be something that can hold them. At least until we can ask them questions and figure out why they’re after us.” Clark had been forced to kill in the past, but in the heat of a battle, with no choice. This was more deliberate than he'd ever faced. He would not risk Lex, yet he wasn't convinced of the need to kill.

"They can't speak without their Master's permission, and even with those who speak, you will not win with reason." The hissing of the two he held supported the statement. Mrs. Q sighed, the weight of all of her seventy-odd years in the sound. "Clark, I've fought vampires all my life. However unwitting, Lex called them by _name_. There are types you can talk with, reason with, and contain, but not this variety. Ask Lex, even if he doesn't know how he knows. My experience has cost me dearly. I don't want yours to as well. They are not alive. The kindest thing for all is to take them into the sun."

He was out of options. Clark looked up at the lightened sky and then stepped forward, ignoring the mewling protest of the vampires and refusing to look at Lex. He would expose himself as a monster to Lex not once but twice.

It would take several more minutes before the sun rose, but Clark’s hearing picked up on the distant sound of sirens. “The police are coming.”

“Shit,” Lex muttered. “They’re right on time. Do we just wait here and let them be witnesses, too?” The question was directed to Mrs. Q, but Clark had the answer. He took another step forward, moving past the elderly vampire hunter as she shifted away and gave him room. It put Clark on the air above the first step down. Lex said something else, but Clark was already flying up, head tipped toward the oncoming dawn and the wind in his ears.

The moment he and the vampires were in direct sunlight, the weight in his hands disappeared, burned up in a flash and leaving only bits of cloth and ash behind to fall back to Earth. Clark kept moving up, picking up speed as he prepared to fly to a safe landing point. Whatever story Lex and Mrs. Q were going to weave about the mess at the house, it would be better without his presence.

“Did it really call you ‘daywalker’?” Lex asked. As greetings went, this wasn’t at all what Clark had expected when he’d walked up the house an hour after he’d left. He’d gone to Smallville and changed into a pair of sweats and a t-shirt. His mother had been sleeping, still. He’d thought about waking her up, but instead he had quietly found her phone, deleted his text from the night before and then left.

He’d checked on Chloe, who was also asleep, but he couldn’t as easily get to her phone without breaking into her apartment, so that was one conversation he probably wouldn’t be able to put off. He’d sent her a follow up text asking to meet her for dinner, his treat again.

There were still police all over the house, and it seemed like all their neighbor’s were out on their porches, watching the unfolding drama. Lex had been outside and had seen Clark first, approaching him before the police did.

“What’s the story?” Clark asked quietly.

“Crazy stalker fans who tried to reenact a scene from my book before running off. Your car is here, but I told them I hadn’t seen you since I got home last night. So mostly the truth. Look more surprised.”

It wasn’t hard to feign shock, especially when Clark stood in front of the damage. The door was gone, more twisted by his forced exit than he had expected. The window on the knob-side had been destroyed by the vampires, but the damage to the door had cracked and broken some of the panes of glass on the hinge-side. There wasn’t much ash on the lawn, but Clark could see a pile inside the broken window from where Mrs. Q had shot the first vampire.

“Mrs. Quartermain went home to rest. She didn’t see much more than the punks running away.” Lex’s voice was pitched to be heard by the police now moving around them. Clark was surprised when no one came forward to take his statement. Lex seemed to read his confusion clearly. “Her granddaughter is the lead investigator today. She’ll be over in a bit.”

“Her—“ Of course, Clark thought, remembering the conversation about the most recent romance book and the police as characters in it. “Isn’t that a conflict?”

“Not really, since we’re going with the story that she was safe in bed when someone broke our house,” Lex answered, voice lowering with each word. It wasn’t until he was called that Clark realized why.

“Mr. Kent?” a voice called out. A woman with short dark hair approached, making her away across the lawns between the houses. “Did you just get back? Your roommate didn’t know where you were.”

Lex gave Clark a meaningful look. “Clark Kent, Detective Sawyer. Detective, Clark Kent.”

She gave him an unimpressed look. “Thank you, Mr. Luthor.” Her eyes scanned over Clark. “Early morning jog?”

“Yes,” Clark answered, looking from the detective, to Lex, to where Mrs. Q had come out on her porch to wave at him merrily. She didn't look much like a vampire hunter, with her blue hair and grandmotherly image. He should know better than anybody that looks were deceptive. He was also pretty certain the police weren’t supposed to prompt people like that. “I’ve only been gone a couple hours, what happened?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out. Your neighbor and roommate both mentioned that you run a lot in the mornings.” That was news to Clark, but he kept his eyes trained on the detective and did his best to look innocent. “Do you typically run barefoot?”

Clark didn’t look down, but only because he stopped himself. He had taken his sneakers off with the rest of his clothes and left them at the farm, in case there was incriminating ash or vampire remains on them. “It gives me better traction. There’s not a lot of debris on the trails, so it’s safe.” He hoped that was true. “My feet are calloused and used to it. Can we go in the house?”

“No,” she answered firmly. “It’ll be a couple hours. I’d appreciate it if you stayed close if we have any further questions, but for right now, I only have one. Did you notice anything unusual when you left this morning?”

“It was still dark. Nothing stands out.” He looked at Lex, then at Mrs. Q, and back to the detective. “I’ve had the feeling that someone was creeping around for a couple weeks, but I didn’t see or hear anything.”

“I figured it was a fan,” Lex filled in. “That’s why we updated the alarm.” Lex took over talking, directing the detective closer to the house as he recounted his previous fan altercations. Clark stayed where he was, ears attuned to Lex, eyes still trapped by the ruined entryway.

Lex’s interview with the detective was longer than Clark’s and featured more detail. Clark himself had questions about the story they’d concocted. As a journalist (in training), Clark already saw a bunch of the holes in his personal story, but the detective – who was related to Mrs. Q – couldn’t be terrible at her job given her rank. So this was what a police cover up looked like.

It was another two hours before they were allowed inside to pack a bag and retrieve their belongings. During the time, Lex and Mrs. Q talked about his next romance novel and negotiated details. Clark stood off to one side and checked his phone. After an hour that normal people got up, Chloe responded to Clark, accepting his offer of food, but not saying anything about the earlier text message. 

When they were finally allowed in, Clark went up to his room and stood for a moment, looking around and trying to decide what he'd need. Funny how he'd been doing almost the same thing just a few hours ago, though for different reasons. With the house subject to investigation and also repairs, Clark and Lex would have to find somewhere else to stay for at least two days, possibly longer. Clark thought about staying with Chloe, but Lois texted from the Planet that she’d cleared his work schedule and Clark sent a message to his adviser and professors at the University that he was going back to Smallville for a couple days. Clark didn’t know where Lex would be staying, he hadn't said before he'd headed downstairs to his own room.

Clark pulled on a flannel over his t-shirt, exchanged the sweats for jeans, and then pulled on new sneakers without bothering with socks. He packed one work outfit, another pair of jeans, and then a handful of t-shirts and flannel. He didn’t need a lot if he was going to Smallville; his old room had a couple outfits for emergencies, as well as a spare uniform.

They met on the lawn again, Lex with a suitcase in one hand and his briefcase in the other. It was everything he would need to work on his book for the interim. Clark situated his duffel across his back and hesitated to be the one to leave.

“Where are you going to stay?” he asked.

Lex had been watching the police, but at the question his eyes swung to Clark. “Why? Why do you care?” It wasn’t angry, but Lex was guarded now in a way he hadn’t just a short time ago.

Clark didn’t immediately have an answer to that, not one that didn’t bring up their one kiss and all Clark’s reasons for laying himself vulnerable. He shook his head and cast about for a moment, surprised when Lex just stood and waited for his response. “If they come after you—“

“Bullshit,” Lex interrupted. “Let me rephrase, Clark. Do you care?”

“Of course I do! They could—“

“No,” snapped Lex. “Forget my relative safety and this recent shit storm. Do you care about me?” 

Clark ducked his head and tried to find the courage he’d had in the dark of night, when he’d been standing in Lex’s room and he’d thought, hoped, that Lex could accept all that he was, but bravery eluded him.

Lex huffed and turned away, heading toward the garage where he kept his rarely-used car. Clark had only seen the Porsche once, and that was when Lex was washing it. This was Clark’s worst case scenario, watching Lex walk away and knowing that this two day break was just the start. 

His heart stuttered when Lex paused and turned back. “Lois said you’d probably go back to the farm and be safe amongst the cows, but I have a place in the city, near the Planet. There’s plenty of room.”

The explanation Lex gave for how he came to maintain ownership of the penthouse after the falling out with his father and the formal dissolution of LuthorCorp was vague, but Clark wasn’t in any position to argue. Not when Lex was talking to him about interior design and showing Clark the room down the hall from Lex’s suite.

It was calming, to the point where Clark didn’t recognize the trap for what it was until they were standing in the kitchen and Lex was staring at him over the marble island top. “Why did you show me?”

Maybe the comfort wasn’t all a lie, or Clark had recovered some of his earlier bravery, because he found that he could answer that question. "Naiveté. Optimism. A faint wish that tentacles are like any other deformity that lovers find their way around." Because he had wanted to make it clear that he would never reject Lex as Bruce had done, would never choose anything over him, not Clark's secrets or safety.

With a rush of breath that wasn't quite a sigh, Lex came around the island and dropped heavily onto one of the high-backed stools that lined the side opposite the appliances. "Tentacles. Alien." He put his head in his hands. "Fucking vampires. I'm going to do something drastic. What is an alien doing on Earth?"

As if exhaustion were catching, Clark felt sapped of strength. He carefully pulled out the stool next to Lex and sat down. "Surviving the annihilation of his planet."

"Anni-" Lex looked over at him, something softening momentarily around the edges. "You were alone?” His eyes narrowed. "You've been here for a long time – Lois knew you in High School. You have a family in Smallville. You were a child when you arrived?" 

He loved his parents and they had always made sure he knew he was loved, but... he’d always been different, stuck on the outside of ‘normality’. "Last son of Krypton."

The softness vanished as Lex continued to process. "An alien orphan, come to Earth. To seek asylum, not a mate. Can you even have sex with humans?"

Clark curled his tentacles around himself tightly under his shirts and smoothed his hands over flannel to make sure that everything was hidden as it was supposed to be. "I don't know."

Trust Lex to stick with that point. "So, was I going to be your test run? The grand experiment in interspecies copulation?"

"I think it's possible. I haven't tried with anyone since before they grew in, but… She wasn't harmed." Jesse, who had kick-started his wild summer with a bang and a blowjob.

The flick of a lighter and the flare of a cigarette. Both had come from a small crystal dish on the island, and Lex dropped the lighter back in with the tink of plastic on glass. "Why me, Clark?"

Because even angry and hurt and confused, Lex was trustworthy. Because Lex was beautiful and for the first time since the tentacles had grown in, they and Clark were in one accord regarding where they wanted Lex to be. Because he made mountains out of his mashed potatoes before devouring them. Clark shrugged, the words stuck in his throat. Because love might truly be universal. 

"So help me, Clark, if you break up with me before I'm done writing this book or trilogy or eighteen book fucking series, I will find the one cliché that kills you." 

The words made so little sense against his expectations and assumptions on where this was going that Clark couldn’t even start trying to parse them. "What?"

"Are all aliens this hard of hearing?" Lex mumbled under his breath. He pinned Clark with a hard look. "Reason and logic really aren't doing well for me. I think if I push the words around long enough, I can create the pretense that anything today makes sense." Lex paused, inhaling deeply on the cigarette before putting it out against the dish it had come from, ash falling to the marble beneath it. "You respect me, Clark?"

"Yes."

"And you trust me?"

"Yes." This question would never have happened otherwise.

"You love me?"

The answer that came to his tongue was as immediate as the others, but the breath stuck in his throat and he had to swallow the words back before he could squeeze them out. "Yes, I do."

"It's strange how this makes sense to me. You have to be an alien, because you're too perfect to be human." Lex visibly mulled over his words. "I don't think the tentacles are exactly a deformity, but we'll find our way around."

Lex never said anything straight out unless it was an insult, it seemed, so it took Clark a moment to realize the full implications. "You want to?"

Silence. There was something distant and withdrawn about Lex's gaze, but he was still _here_ , which is more than Clark had known to ask for. "I don't think I want the alternative."

"The alternative being?"

Lex looked away for a moment, and his left hand reached out to cover Clark’s, who had been tapping his fingers against the marble without realizing it. "I don't know beyond I think it would involve you leaving." 

Clark turned his hand over and their fingers laced together like it was natural. "You don't have to sleep with me to make me stay."

"I need to wrap my mind around it, which as an experimentalist means I need to get my hands on it. You. I can’t tell you what I felt today watching you fly away and thinking you might not come back.” 

From Lex’s tone of voice, Clark would guess it was the same thing he had felt when Lex had turned away and Clark had been afraid it’d be the last time he’d see him, the last time Lex would want to see Clark. Lex tugged on their joined hands and the stools spun until they were facing each other. They both shifted their knees to slot them together.

Lex reached out with his right hand and touched the top button on Clark’s shirt. “May I?” With the hand holding Clark’s, he squeezed gently, until Clark nodded. Then Lex let go and worked the buttons with quiet efficiency. He stood up when the buttons were done, and he stepped into Clark’s space, leaning against him to push the flannel down his arms and off, before letting it drop to the floor. Then his hands smoothed around the bottom hem of the t-shirt before his fingers curled in it, knuckles brushing against Clark’s skin – and there, against a tentacle – as he divested him of that layer of clothing as well.

Clark tugged the t-shirt over his own head, leaving Lex’s hands to fall away from the material. He shuddered when Lex touched the sides of his chest, between his armpits and the topmost appendages coming free. When his head was clear of the material, Clark found Lex staring at his face. He expected Lex to continue his hands-on exploration, but Lex leaned up and in instead, pressing his lips softly to Clark’s.

“You can touch me, too,” Lex whispered against his mouth.

Despite the invitation, Clark hesitated, letting one hand drop to Lex’s hip as he leaned in for another kiss. Lex met him and opened his mouth to Clark in further invitation. Clark accepted that as well, licking his way into Lex’s mouth, ignoring the taste of ash from the cigarette and enjoying the slick heat of Lex’s mouth, the way he sucked at Clark’s tongue suggestively before sliding his own against it.

The touch of Lex’s hand against the tentacles had Clark shivering and pulling back, eyes opening before he’d realized they’d fallen shut. Lex’s gaze was still on Clark’s face, even has his left hand explored where the first tentacle appeared, coming out of the skin over his ribs. The next one was a hand span down and Lex traced the distance, spreading his fingers against Clark’s side.

"You could break me." Lex asked. Clark jerked his fingers away and did meet his eyes then, horrified by the thought. "Not that you would, but you could. Your strength, your speed. I’ve seen what Superman can do. What you did for me today."

"Lex, you have to know that I wouldn't."

“Wouldn’t protect me? Wouldn’t put yourself between me and certain danger?” His eyes widened and Clark held his breath while Lex’s mouth curved into a silent, ‘oh.’ Instead of speaking and revealing his train of thought, he leaned in for another kiss, and Clark opened Lex’s tongue this time.

They kept kissing while Lex’s hand found the third tentacle, and then Lex’s fingers curled around the bottom one and Clark shuddered and gasped. They weren’t overly sensitive, but no one ever touched them. Clark tried to pretend they were part of his abdomen most of the time. He loosened his reflexive hold on the tentacles as he brought his other hand up to cup the back of Lex’s head and kiss him again.

Lex hummed against his mouth as the tentacles pressed against Lex’s shirt, touching his hands briefly in return before hanging loosely at Clark’s side. “Hold me,” Lex requested, voice little more than a whisper of sound against Clark’s lips, but firm enough that Clark couldn’t deny the request. With slow and careful movements, Clark used his arms to draw Lex closer and kept kissing him, then he wrapped the narrower appendages around him.

Lex's fingers twitched and his body stiffened, but Clark was done. He didn't tighten the other appendages and use them to pull Lex closer as he would have liked. 

"You are such a _good guy_." Lex sighed as he pulled his head. His eyes opened to pin Clark with a look as he licked his kiss-swollen lips. "When was the last time you failed to hold a door for someone or forgot to give your mother flowers for her birthday? Or, just..." Seeming to run out of examples of Clark's behavior, Lex made an annoyed sound in the back of his throat. “Stop being so afraid for the both of us and hold me.”

Clark tugged him closer, wrapping the tentacles like a vice around him, imprisoning Lex in his embrace. It felt good, so good, the pressure of Lex's body against him, the sensation of his skin through the thin material of his silk shirt, warm and smooth. Lex's head ended up tucked in the curve of Clark's neck, his quick breaths blowing hot over Clark's skin and leaving it damp so that it cooled again on every inhale.

Lex's breathing hadn't pushed into panic, but it was still quick. Clark could feel his heart racing under the thumb on the pulse point in Lex's neck, a tentacle over his wrists. He could feel Lex pressed against him, the length of an erection against his thigh. His own dick was trapped between them against Lex’s hip. "Lex," he said softly, then closed his mouth because he had no idea how to go about expressing how perfect Lex was, how much this meant to Clark, who had at best hoped to be allowed to continue to orbit Lex.

There was a shiver in Lex's body that wasn't quite a shudder. More of a tremble. It felt like fear. The pleasure of Lex in his arms was nothing to the rising of bile in his throat at the thought of Lex's distress. He wasn't holding so tightly that he was stopping Lex from speaking, from giving the command to be released, but no such words came. Lex said nothing.

“Lex?” Clark tried to take some comfort in Lex’s autonomic response, but Lex made a living writing characters who got inappropriate erections in situations. In the end, it was the lack of vocal response that Clark couldn’t take. He thrust Lex back, reseated him on his abandoned stool and released him abruptly enough that Lex rocked uncertainly for a moment, eyes widening. "Sorry," Clark said, standing and moving back.

He'd forgotten his stool was behind him and he automatically used the freed tentacles to keep himself from tumbling over it, catching himself on the edge of the island and the back of the stool.

Lex's eyes were still wide with surprise and they locked in on Clark's tentacles. "I didn't say let go." He raised his gaze to Clark and waved a hand in the air, expression detached. "That's useful, though. Catching yourself like that. An extra hand. Or three."

"Useful," Clark repeated numbly.

"Do you find it distasteful to touch me?" Lex asked with the same distance in his voice. "I've noticed this trend where when I'm trying to get you to touch me, you manage only a few seconds, maybe a minute or two, before you freak out."

Clark gaped at him. "Before _I_ freak out? Lex, you were practically having a panic attack in my arms!"

Lex stared at him before shaking his head. "I was surprisingly okay with this. I want to be more okay with this."

It felt like being hit by a truck, the air forced out of him in a whoosh. "I want you to be okay with this too, but you have _time_. I'm not going anywhere, Lex."

To his surprise, Lex slid off the stool and back into Clark’s space. When he started crawling into Clark’s lap, Clark was forced to sit down and put his arms out to help stabilize him. Clark needed help getting a clue sometimes, but this was easy enough to figure out. Lex wrapped his arms around Clark’s shoulder, and Clark wrapped his own about Lex’s middle and held on loosely. 

There were fewer points of contact, but Lex's body was calmer, heart rate slower, though still elevated. He was aroused, but Clark wasn't anymore, put off by Lex's earlier fear. Lex squeezed him tightly. “Maybe I’m not ready for kinky alien sex games,” Lex admitted.

"I like this," Clark said. "I know I have... tentacles, but I don't use them. I think I'd be as happy to ignore them as you might be. Happier, even."

Lex shook his head, but didn’t deny it. "Why did you stop? You seemed to like it."

Clark held him tighter, feeling his face heat. "You said… basically, you were tired of writing characters who were into xenophilia. Something about how they reveled in fear and mystery.”

Lex held tightly for another minute before his shoulders started to shake and he pulled back. Clark loosened his hold instinctively. Lex was smiling, lips turned up and his eyes crinkled in laughter. “Oh, Clark. You want to tab my slot, don’t you? Your kinky sex really is going to be face-to-face missionary, isn’t it?” He laughed at his own joke and curled over Clark again. “Oh, god, this day, Clark. I can’t handle this day.”

Clark hugged him in return, relief and love and stubborn strains of worry running through him. “We could both probably use the sleep. I’ll still be here tomorrow.”

“Good. I need to figure out the aliens in my story. It’s a good thing I won’t have to waste time with the prosthetics. But I want to paint you blue again – this time, all of you.” As he spoke, Lex was relaxing in Clark’s arms, but Clark knew he couldn’t let Lex sleep that way. He was straddled awkwardly over Clark’s lap and it wasn’t comfortable for either of them.

“Don’t worry about the paint,” Clark picked him up, earning him a hum and a kiss to his neck that tripped him up for a moment. “I’ll tuck you in.”

“You’re not going to lay down with me?” Lex asked, stiffening.

“I promised Chloe I’d treat her to dinner.” He also needed to talk to his mother, check in with Mrs. Q and Lois, and revise his thesis. Lex’s room was dark, the curtains already drawn against the mid-day sun. Clark maneuvered the room without incident, but Lex didn’t let go when Clark tried to lay him against the dark bedding. 

“Pull the blanket off, please. The whole place is probably dusty.” Clark straightened up and readjusted Lex for a moment to do as requested, using his tentacles and left arm to hold Lex and his right hand to turn down the bed. When he made a second attempt to lay Lex down, the man continued to hold on. “You could stay here until you have to go. It’s not even lunch time,” he pointed out around a yawn.

Lex finally relinquished his hold and stretched out on the sheet. “You should invite Chloe here. Grab Lois, too. We’ll do a thing.” 

Clark’s plan had been to fill Chloe in on the vampires and get her input. Actually, on thinking on it further, Clark realized he could still do that. He climbed over Lex as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. He used the tentacles to lower himself gently, ignoring how odd it felt for them to be used openly like this after so long hidden. “Do you think Lois would freak out if she found out I was Superman?”

“Possibly,” Lex answered, curling into Clark. “But the vampires will probably distract her.” He searched Clark’s face. “You don’t have to tell her. Any of it, but particularly your piece.”

“Would you?” Clark asked. He trusted Lois to an extent, but he and Chloe had only talked about bringing Lois in on his secret once, and neither of them had been able to say for sure how Lois would react. Lex probably knew her best, despite Chloe’s familial connection.

“If it were my secret?” Lex asked, thinking about it.

“It kind of is, now,” Clark pointed out.

“Clark, if our roles were reversed, I don’t know that I would have trusted _me_ to know, let alone Lois.” He reached up and carded his fingers through Clark’s hair, then down Clark’s forehead and down the bridge of his nose. Clark closed his eyes, smiling when the fingertips ghosted over his lips, and then down his neck, his sternum, and then following the path of his ribs until Lex was touching the tentacles again.

His hands were gentle, his touch light, but Clark followed Lex’s silent demands and wrapped himself carefully around Lex again. Clark kissed him, because Lex’s mouth was there and his eyes were open and soft, his heart rate more settled. “I trust you.”

Lex huffed against Clark’s mouth. “Of course you do, farm boy.”

  


**Author's Note:**

> Non-explicit dub-con: Lex is writing a character who has been captured and forced to touch his lead captor sexually in front of an audience. That scene is referred to again later. There is limited detail and because it is a snippet of Lex's writing, little explanation is given regarding motivations of any characters involved in the dub-con scene.


End file.
